Syrian refugees: NI school children's welcome message ahead of arrival

Messages welcoming 11 Syrian refugee families to Northern Ireland have been put on show ahead of their arrival.

A total of 51 refugees will arrive in Belfast from Lebanon, under the Vulnerable Persons Relocations Scheme.

Eleven of them are children under the age of five, including a baby.

Cards and drawings by local children to greet the refugees are on display at a special welcome centre where they will spend their first few days.

The families will spend their first few days at a refugee welcome centre in Belfast

The children came up with ideas for things to do when the Syrian families settle in to their new homes

After the initiation process, the families will move into housing in the private rental sector until alternative arrangements are made.

This is the first time Northern Ireland has participated in a refugee resettlement program.

More Syrian refugees are due to arrive in Northern Ireland in the New Year

The first group will be settled in the Belfast area.

The second group of refugees will arrive in the first quarter of 2016 and will be settled in the north west.

Prime Minister David Cameron announced the expansion of the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme on 7 September.

The scheme will resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees across the UK over the next five years.

Refugees from countries neighbouring Syria will also be resettled under the scheme, mostly Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

It does not extend to those who seek asylum in Europe or countries like Libya.

Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme

• All of the "paperwork" is completed before the refugees arrive.

• It prioritises women and children at risk, people in need of medical attention and survivors of torture and violence.

• All refugees settled under the scheme have undergone a two-step security screening process.

• People under the scheme will have access to housing, medical care and education, and they can work.

• The Home Office will provide funding of at least £10,000 per refugee for the first year.

• Refugees taken into the UK under the scheme will be granted five years' humanitarian protection which includes access to public funds, the labour market and the possibility of family reunion, if a person was separated from their partner or child when leaving their country.

• After those five years they can apply to settle in the UK.