Innholdsfortegnelse for 01/04/2021 i The Big Issue

The Big Issue turns 30 in September. It’s a significant milestone. What a trip it’s been! Launched in 1991 in response to the growing number of rough sleepers on the streets of London, at its heart was a simple and revolutionary idea: offer people who are homeless or in insecure accommodation the opportunity to earn a legitimate income through selling a magazine to the public. The magazine would be produced by professional journalists, with insight and unique perspectives from those it serves. They’d buy it for half the cover price. The difference would be their income. This has remained fast and true since. Over three decades, The Big Issue has helped almost 100,000 vendors earn a total of £120m. Last year brought unprecedented challenge for vendors, as it did for…

Rainbow By Rene Robbins Frequent and long-time Street Art contributor Rene is a sprightly 90-something. She enjoys sketching nature and wildlife, but instinctively returns to abstract geometric patterns and collage. Arthritis makes the intricate cutting of her earlier, photography-derived compositions, inspired by Matisse’s Cut Outs, difficult these days. So she has taken to working with simpler shapes, using coloured paper or painting on white paper to create her joyful, spontaneous, playful pieces. She lives in London and submits her artworks via the 240 Project, a health activity centre for people affected by homelessness and exclusion. Cool Fusion By John Jennings John is an abstract colourist painter who submits his work via Creative Future, a Brighton charity supporting artists from the margins. At age 15 he saw works by Elizabeth Frink…

We spend a lot of time watching costume dramas in which people from past centuries look and behave just as we do. They didn’t. If you could take a time machine and go back 200 years you would be surprised at the difference. The first thing to notice is that the people around you are 20cm shorter. Another is the abundance of children and the lack of old people: only one person in 20 made it past the age of 65. Their spoken language would be unintelligible at first, but you would soon recognise it as your own. If you stuck around like a visiting anthropologist, you would discover that their experience of life was quite different from yours, that most of them could neither read nor write, and that…

A hand up... Our sellers BUY the magazine for £1.50 and sell it for £3, keeping the difference Not a handout… Vendors earn a legitimate income, and gain valuable social and employability skills. With your support now, we can continue to support them in the future. The right to citizenship… The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers to tackle social and financial exclusion. Prevention… Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…

VENDORS In many parts of the country vendors are prevented from working on their pitches by local lockdowns. But our staff is working closely with each vendor to make sure there is extra support to make up for reduced earnings. For vendors who are still on their pitches, we are providing masks and hand gel, and encouraging them to follow guidelines. If you can, please support your local vendor by buying The Big Issue from them. PITCHES Towns and cities across the country are quieter than normal so our teams are moving vendors to pitches where they have the best chance of selling magazines, depending on local safety measures and circumstances. An increasing number of vendors are offering contactless payments so they are not losing out as people carry less…

1. Don Lockwood is the hero of which 1952 musical? 2. Who wrote the novel The Godfather? 3. What Taylor Swift album is the song Shake It Off on? 4. Which English football team play at Kenilworth Road? 5. How many countries does Russia share a land border with… 6. …and name them. 7. Which famous world figure was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm in the German Empire? 8. What is the name of Thor’s war hammer? 9. In which year was Boris Johnson first elected mayor of London? 10. Which Eighties Number One opens with the lines ‘Turn around/Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you’re never coming round’ 11. What organ does a deer lack? 12. Who painted The Gleaners? 13. What…

At the turn of each of the last two years, we’ve celebrated what was to come. We settled on a list of the innovators, creators and radical thinkers we believed would be doing remarkable things to make the world better for others in the coming 12 months. But as we all know, 2020 was a year like no other. Making predictions will make fools of us all. But we do feel that finding and saluting Changemakers has never been more vital than now. We are looking at our collection of Changemakers for 2021 a little differently. While we shine a light on those likely to make waves in the time ahead, we also wanted to reflect on the astonishing work done by so many in the last 12 months. It…

Rachel Brosnahan has become one of the biggest names in the acting world thanks to her starring role in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel , for which she has won two Golden Globes and an Emmy. But it was not winning the role of Midge Maisel or the phenomenal success of the hit series that turned her world upside down. It was a pre-fame sleep out with a US youth homelessness charity in 2012. Brosnahan has been working with Covenant House, a pan-American organisation providing shelter, food and support to young people experiencing homelessness, ever since. “At 23, I was sitting across the table from my peers who were experiencing homelessness and it felt wildly unfair,” she says. “Paid shelter, food and clean clothes and the opportunities for a brighter future…

It’s a difficult start to the year with vendors in most parts of the country unable to sell. You can show your support by taking out a subscription directly from a vendor of your choice, who will receive 50 per cent of the proceeds. See the map on our website and search for your local vendor, or find another to support by reading the stories of some of the men and women who sell The Big Issue. bigissue.com/vendors JOHN WILLIAMS Swansea I feel confident things will pick up. When I was o›f the streets during the first lockdown The Big Issue used to contact me to make sure I was OK and ask if I needed anything. I got food vouchers, which were a godsend. I personally feel I wouldn’t…