Knocking on doors, how does it feel?

This should have been included in my last post but I ran out of time, anyway just wanted to share a few thoughts from my experience knocking on doors with Community Regeneration, a project based in Craigmillar. The aim of the project is to help rebuild a sense of community in the area, not only that but to encourage local residents to become actively involved in improving their community, it also helps people with health issues and the process of moving back into employment . I spent the day knocking on doors with one of their Animators (curious title), who had a guidance background herself, we wanted to get peoples opinions of what they thought of the area, how they enjoyed living there, any changes they would like to see, also if there was any help we could give them with health issues or moving back into work. Of the doors we went to, some people were obviously in but didn't want to answer fair enough, others were out, and then we have the people that actually did invite us into their homes and of those I can honestly say that although I didn't always feel entirely comfortable, it was a great way to engage with people and to reach those that can be hard to reach for whatever reason . It was good for many reasons for example it opened up a dialogue that was on their terms, it was a gentle approach a conversation really, and skillfully led initially by the Animator , people were very open and full of good ideas of how they thought the community could be improved, achieveable improvements aswell and things that you could see the local community really getting behind. I learnt so much that day just knocking on doors, I can really see how that could be one of the ways forward in engaging those young people who are harder to reach.