Way way back, 25 years ago, in November 1989, the Berlin wall was brought down by the people of Berlin. Not by the authorities but by the people on both sides working towards a common goal of freedom and inclusion. They believed that they were capable of bringing about change as a united force against the East German Communist society that had repressed the population behind the wall for 38 years.

Now I remember watching the event, on television, as a 20-year-old student with that marvellous feeling when one is still young and naïve that anything is possible if enough people believe in the potential outcome. Unfortunately, over the years, the cynicism monster grows within us and slowly gets more powerful until the stage that you think there is no point in attempting something because you’re never going to make a substantial difference anyway.

And then you stumble upon an organisation like Doorway which, against all the odds, continues to make a difference to the everyday lives of a number of people year after year. And maybe it is not as dramatic as a 100-mile wall tumbling down one cold night in Berlin, but the underlying issues are very similar.

Because as Doorway celebrated our tenth birthday this year, it is worth looking at why there is a need for the organisation to exist in the first place and the common theme running through all the different stories of our guests is that of social exclusion.

Social exclusion is formally defined as “the failure of society to provide certain individuals and groups with those rights and benefits normally available to its members, such as employment, adequate housing, healthcare, education and training.”

Now we at Doorway are unable to actually eradicate the numerous instances of social exclusion for those who are accessing our service but what we can do, very successfully, is minimise the damage caused by the failure of society to provide those rights and benefits.

And so, over the last year, we have worked very hard at empowering our guests to develop a resilience to the constant battering they may get from both statutory agencies and society as a whole, both of which build barrier after barrier to them accessing the services that they so deserve as human beings.

This is achieved by building on the basic foundations of the extra activities that we provide for our guests – the football training, music workshops, writing group and the women’s group – which have all played a major part in our aim of increasing the motivation and self-worth of those who access our services.

This has subsequently enabled our guests to have more confidence in tackling those everyday issues in their lives concerning addictions, housing, finances and debts, unemployment and mental health issues, all of which contribute to the general feeling of isolation and of social exclusion.

So much of our work at Doorway is spent in compiling ‘hard’ outcomes for funders that sometimes it is difficult to remember that the ‘soft’ outcomes matter just as much to people – we can make someone feel better about themselves for even just a short period each week.

It’s not all about the statistics and how many people have gained employment or housing, it’s often about the journey towards those goals.

Doorway exists to support all those whilst they continue their struggle to be more inclusive in society and to access those rights and benefits that they are entitled to.

And so, every moment spent at Doorway is like small chunks of the Berlin wall repeatedly falling down, day after day after day…