A colourful collage of cards, posters and personalised notes will welcome Syrian refugees to their temporary new Belfast home today.
A baby born just weeks ago will be among the first group to arrive in the north as part of a resettlement scheme.
The refugees have been living in camps in Lebanon and Jordan, which border war-torn Syria.
There will be 10 families totalling 51 people in the first group - 11 of whom are children under the age of five.
They will arrive following a seven-hour charter flight from Beirut to Belfast.
The Muslim and Christian families will be greeted by the Red Cross and brought to a welcome centre for a few days before being resettled.
The doors of this welcome centre were yesterday opened briefly.
Neil McKittrick from the Red Cross said it would provide an opportunity for the families to rest for a few days and build peer support networks.
They will be interviewed and will receive presentations from health officials and police as well as other organisations.
School children have been busy making cards and posters to welcome the group. An entire wall of the welcome centre has been covered with colourful messages of support.
As well as cards, children have written notes, one of which includes helpful definitions for Irish slang including 'spud', 'melt', 'craic' and 'dead on'.
"The intention is to make this a welcoming place. If you put yourself in their shoes, they are coming from a terrible conflict in Syria," Mr McKittrick said.
"They have all been in refugee camps for a while and they had hoped to go back home. Coming to Northern Ireland, or Europe at all, was not their number one option."
Denise Wright from the Refugee and Asylum Forum said many of the families would have been "at best" living in prefab accommodation with no electricity while in the camps.
"It is quite upsetting when you see the conditions people are living in. The thought of spending winter in the camps is quite harrowing," she said.
"We want to make sure that the next few days are warm and welcoming. There are a number of young children and this will be a very different environment for them."
The British government has said 20,000 refugees will be resettled in the UK by 2020 - with 1,000 due to arrive by Christmas.
Officials say the UK will only agree to accept refugees who commit to undergoing a two-stage security screening process.
More than 45 local authorities have made offers of accommodation and support, according to the Home Office.
The refugees arriving as part of the vulnerable persons relocation (VPR) scheme will join others already taken in. They will be given legal protection and access to housing, education, employment and medical care.
The Executive offered to receive up to 100 refugees by the end of December and further groups on a phased basis from early next year.
After they leave the welcome centre, the first group will be based in west, north and south Belfast, in areas identified as having the most suitable accommodation and lowest risk of racist attacks.
A special police unit will help manage the resettlement of the refugees.
