Comments / thoughts greatly appreciated on this one:
On (a very wet) Thursday, ds2 and I delivered Christian Aid envelopes and Make Poverty History postcards (freepost to send to Downing Street) to our allocated street.
Today ds1 and 2 returned with me to collect the envelopes and encourage people to consider sending the postcards. There were 44 houses in the street. 3 people contributed.
Of the remaining 41, several people were out. Fair enough! 8 said "No you didn't [put the envelopes through the door]" (!) daring me to say yes, I did. All refused one of my spares (including 1 who said "I don't think so" in a particularly rude way and shut the door in our faces. One man accused ds2 of breaking his gnome... One said, "It's in the bucket, yes that's right - in the bucket" in a really horrible, sneery way (this was the second last house and I nearly cried at this point).
It's not that I expected everyone to give - I didn't expect such outright hostility when the info on the envelope and the pc was straightforward, tied in with Make Poverty History etc. Iwould have been happy if they said we prefer not to give in this way or we prefer to give to different (types) of charity. I would have been very happy to engage in dialogue and answer questions if they were worried about the money only going to churches, only helping Christians, how much goes to the poor (as opposed to spent on advertising, admin etc) etc etc and happy if they had then decided that they didn't want to give but to lie, to be rude - I was flabbergasted.
This was a clearly affluent street in a well-off suburb. Ds1 was upset at the lack of engagement and I have spent the rest of the day alternating between being upset and really, really angry. Are people really so ignorant about development issues? How can it not be (if not a priority) at least a passing interest? How can people not want to at least know more?
Am I really so different in being passionate about this?