Health and wellbeing column: music in a context of violence

Two children are dancing together, holding hands and skipping around in circles, singing a refrain and throwing their heads back, laughing. It's a beautiful video to receive from our training team. My first response is relief.

The camera pans out, showing 10, then 20, then 30 children, all dancing in pairs, smiling and laughing to each other, singing and spinning in circles. My second response is to laugh. The camera angle turns, and continues to turn, showing an entire huge school courtyard filled with 500 children, moving together in joy. The third response is tears.

In the middle of the courtyard flies a yellow, red and sky-blue flag, a red diagonal line from bottom left to top right, and a yellow star in the top left corner. It is the only indication that the footage is shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Goma, North Kivu, a context beset by war, violence and displacement on a massive scale.