A primary school in South Belfast

Eight years ago exactly, I spent the day of a Trump election victory working with a charity called Help on Your Doorstep, as part of a partnership that Company Three was involved in at the time. There was something deeply hopeful and human about going from door to door on an estate in Archway, saying hello and asking people if they needed help with anything.

Today, I woke to the same news in Belfast, where I’m helping the talented and committed team at the Crescent Arts Centre develop their programme for young people. My first stop of the day was a workshop led by an artist called Andrea at Fane Street Primary School, in South Belfast.

Fane Street looks small from the outside. It’s single storey. Red brick. A heavy brown door. The railings need painting - I learn later that they’re listed so they can’t paint them themselves. There’s a sign that says welcome in lots of languages and a little logo at the bottom which says ‘School of Sanctuary’.

When the class arrive in the old-fashioned hall with their art all over the walls, it is immediately clear how much this hour of dance and theatre means to them – and how much they love Andrea. They look so happy to be there. Two girls give her a card they have made. It has a big heart on the front.

I take part in the warm up, passing a clap, introducing ourselves. When Andrea puts on Shake It Off by Taylor Swift really loud and it starts getting very energetic, I gently drift out and watch from the side with the teacher as they play games and strike poses.

Every now and again one of the kids comes up to the teacher and asks to go to the toilet, or makes a ‘T’ sign with their hands, or says “can I go and get my water bottle?” or  “can I take my jumper off?” He says yes every time. They do what they need to do and come running back into the game.

I don’t think I have ever seen a group of children dance and play with so much joy.

The teacher tells me that only one of the children in the class was born in Belfast. There’s a lot of flux, he says. He might gain and lose seven or eight kids in a year. He resonates with care and love. It’s in everything he says and does.

At one point a little boy who just arrived from Somalia comes to us, pointing to his knee from where he’d just fallen over, unable to say anything more because he doesn’t know any English yet. There’s another boy from Palestine who came a few weeks ago. “We don’t yet know what he experienced there” says the teacher.

He takes me around the school. There’s a playground. A sports hall. A space for lunch, set out with colourful chairs and WELCOME on the wall in big letters. Two specialist SEN units. A calm room for children struggling to stay in the classroom, with sofas and calm music and breakfast every morning. A sign in the corner says ‘this is our house’.

Every teacher I meet is smiling. Supporting. Giving fist bumps. One works solely with newly arrived kids, helping them build their English and catch up on their education.

There’s a room for parents too. I meet the mum of the Palestinian boy. She has just finished a painting class, run by a volunteer, and is hanging out afterwards, drinking tea. I tell how happy her son looks in the workshop, which is still taking place down the corridor.

When we return, they’ve made five tiny scenes set to music. We watch as they pretend to walk out into snow. The boy from Somalia catches imaginary snowflakes on his tongue, grinning, his sore knee forgotten. The boy from Palestine pretends to build a snowman.

They finish and all rush to Andrea to give her a hug.

There was funding to do this at one point, but then it ran out, so now she does it as a volunteer. “They give me so much” she tells me later.

I think of Trump and all the hate - and how far away it feels from this space of care and love.

I think how much we’re going to need care and love (and nuance and humanity and connection too).

And that the good news is that we already have a lot of it. In Fane Street Primary and Help On Your Doorstep and the Crescent Arts Centre and thousands of other projects and places.

We have it, and we can make more of it, whenever we want.