PERIOD 5: Working period

IMAGE: Meeting the Neighbours

You decided to mobilise the whole team and simply go out and visit every house in the neighbourhood and introduce yourself. Later that evening, you gathered the group and explained what you had in mind. Some of the comrades were in doubt. Would English people appreciate being approached so directly?

Images are written by past and present teachers at DNS

Two weeks had passed since you arrived in Birmingham, the city where your team had decided to live and work in period five. You had found a house with a cheap rent, and you had been out exploring a bit. After dinner, you and some of your teammates were sitting on mattresses in one of the still bare rooms. Some were telling stories about their new workplaces, while others had not found a job yet.

“I met an old man in the street today”, one of you said, “and you know what, it turns out that he lives in that house over there, right opposite us!” Then you realised that you had not spoken to any of your neighbours since you arrived. You had to do something about that!

A bold move

After some discussion, you decided to mobilise the whole team and simply go out and visit every house in the neighbourhood and introduce yourself. Later that evening, you gathered the group and explained what you had in mind. Some of the comrades were in doubt. Would English people appreciate being approached so directly?

Well, what could it hurt to try? You agreed that you would carry out the action in the coming weekend. The plan was to go out two and two and visit each and every house. You would bake cookies from your home countries to bring as gifts, and one of you came up with the idea of making a small leaflet telling about yourselves, the DNS programme and why you had come to Birmingham.

You also decided to bring an invitation for a barbecue in your garden on Saturday evening the following week.

Going to bed that evening, you were looking forward to taking this first step to get in touch with the people in the community, and you hoped it would be the start of a good connection with many people in the months to come.