Innholdsfortegnelse for 8/23/2021 i The Big Issue

The heart-warming moment when Big Issue vendor Clive found out he had passed his GCSEs has now been watched more than 300,000 times online. The popular Plymouth seller’s ‘5’ grade in English language and maths was earned at the age of 58 after returning to education during lockdown. Clive turned his life around with The Big Issue after a difficult childhood led to addiction and homelessness as an adult. He has become a popular figure on his pitch outside Theatre Royal Plymouth, where he also takes part in acting classes and productions. Clive’s popularity peaked online on GCSE results day thanks to congratulations from footballer Marcus Rashford, who shared the video to his five million Twitter followers with the caption: “Love this. Congrats Clive.” The Big Issue has been inundated…

VENDORS Following a long lockdown, vendors in England, Scotland and Wales are back out selling the magazine. Please continue to support them. SUBSCRIPTIONS AND SHOPS Since the first lockdown in March last year, we have supported our vendors with more than £1m of financial assistance to make up for lost sales. We still need your help to make sure we can continue to support them through uncertain times. HOW YOU CAN HELP 1. Sf your local vendor is selling The Big Issue, please buy from them. Vendors buy magazines for £1.50 and sell for £3, keeping the difference and working their way out of poverty. 2. Sf you cannot buy from a vendor, subscriptions to the magazine are available on a three, six or 12-month basis with a new edition…

• Around 24,000 people are held in detention under the Immigration Act each year • There are seven “immigration removal centres” in the UK. Harmondsworth, near Heathrow, is the largest in Europe and can hold up to 676 men • Most people are detained for less than two months, but around a third are held in detention centres for longer • There is no upper limit on how long a person can be held in immigration detention in the UK, unlike most other European countries • Nearly 25,000 people left UK detention centres in 2019. Around 70 per cent were released back into their communities, instead of being removed from the country…

I was hosted for the first time when I was an asylum seeker for four months and the second time now after being granted refugee status for one month. Hosting has helped me a lot, to be honest. The first time it rescued me from the former MoD camp in Penally, west Wales, and for the first time since I left my house in Syria, two years before, I felt like I was home. The family helped me understand the culture and helped me rebuild my life again. We are still friends and family. The second time, I was searching for a room to rent and I couldn't find any. I had to leave the asylum accommodation when I got refugee status - so I called Refugees At Home. In…

The shop looks like a café which happens to have a social mission S love the smell of good-quality coffee. When S came to the UK, S loved the coffee culture and the pub culture. S loved the small, classic-style cafés with people sipping on coffee, chatting with friends, having a croissant, that kind of stuff. A culture where, in the morning, people grab a takeaway coffee, in the afternoon they come in with their friends, and in the winter there’s a different mood – they become a bit more festive. I love the interior, the seating and the ambience. The mission of Haven Coffee is very simple. The idea is to serve Fairtrade, organic, specialty coffee, with a social mission of breaking the false narratives in society around refugees.…

01 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Still tops my list, 60 years after publication. Narrated by six-year-old Scout Finch, it’s the story of her lawyer father Atticus’s defence of a young black man accused of rape in Alabama during the Great Depression. Rich in period detail, it’s a story of courage, loss of innocence and so much more. 02 Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh In this ingenious, twisty novel lawyer Eddie Flynn defends a Hollywood star on trial for murdering his wife but (not a spoiler) the perpetrator is a serial killer whose raison d’être is to find his way on to the jury. Quite brilliant. 03 Marked for Death by Tony Kent Part courtroom drama, part serial killer thriller, this gripping, high-octane story features a lawyer with a…

I come from Somalia and have been living in Switzerland since August 3, 2008. I first came to Italy by ship. The crossing was really not easy, but I made it. Then I was in Italy for a couple of months. But I wanted to continue to Switzerland. Life in Italy was too difficult, I sometimes had to sleep outside. That scared me. I left Somalia because there was a war there. My father died when I was three years old. My mother had six children to look after. We had a family restaurant, where I also helped out. But at some point there was no more work for us because of the war. The village I come from is in the south of Somalia. Al-Shabaab terrorist militia came often,…

The jobs market has continued its booming Covid recovery with record-high vacancies, but experts urged caution and warned of a “tricky autumn” for workers in hospitality and those starting out on their career. The Office for Hational Statistics’ latest labour market figures, released last week, show single-month vacancy estimates and Adzuna online job adverts broke beyond one million for the first time, while the unemployment rate also fell from 4.9 per cent to 4.7 per cent. But a skills “mismatch” means that companies are struggling to find staff to fill roles, warned Matt Whittaker, chief executive of Pro Bono Economics, and there is a risk hospitality staff, young workers and those with low qualifications could miss out on the jobs market recovery. “The key thing here is a mismatch across…

2008 I came to this country from Eritrea in 2008. For one year I had to live on just Home Office support. Then they refused my application for asylum. 2009 Around August 2009, the support stopped and I became homeless. Between 2009 and 2011 I didn’t have any support and wasn’t allowed to work. I had a very hard time. I have a bad leg, with three operations over the years, and I was appealing the decision. 2010 Then, in 2010 I was helped by a Catholic church in Coventry. The church helped me for around six months and I lived in a shared house, with men and women together. But after six months, the lady there said, “I can’t keep you.” They gave me some water and a food…

For various reasons, marginalised people like myself and vulnerable asylum seekers arriving by boat on UK shores are rarely heard from. Nevertheless, we have a lot to say to you. The UK government’s proposed Hationality and Borders Bill is politically expedient, not principled. I attempt to put myself in the shoes of those desperate asylum seekers who put their lives on the line knowing they may not make it to their destination. Unfortunately, while you as a reader, I as a writer, and those policymakers in their safe place have the option to choose sides, the sea does not. The sea does not care where you come from or who you are; the sea does not discriminate; and the sea can kill, particularly those in fragile boats. These asylum seekers…

Folkestone is on the frontline. In this area boats are arriving every day carrying desperate people taking desperate lengths to find safety and refuge, provoking a mixed response from the locals. While some offer support, others have felt resentful of their presence, leading to friction. Sn an attempt to help bridge the gap, Art Refuge supports the mental health and wellbeing of people displaced due to conflict, persecution and poverty. They have held activities in the Calais Jungle camp, but this year turned their attention to this side of the Channel. Popping up across the town are a number of curious-looking creatures. They’re easy to miss and, though small, carry a big message. Many newly arrived men are taken to Napier Barracks, being held in conditions ruled as unlawful back…

I first learned English by studying in Iraq. We have English in our education. Not just the basics, a lot of words. In school they taught us a lot of names for things. We watched a lot of TV episodes and films, too. I remember the first one I watched was Around the World in 80 Days with Jackie Chan. In Iraq, electricity is a difficult thing to get. But whenever I had some, I would watch films. A lot of people are very shy when they don’t know a lot of English so they don’t use it. They are afraid to get it wrong. I was not afraid and I was not shy so that helped me a lot. On my journey to England, people knew I didn’t know…

I have a special soft spot for authors who take risks. It would be easy, especially if you’ve had success, to keep turning out similar books, staying within your comfort zone. But the best writers are the ones who move away from the safety net and give readers something new and exciting – and so it is with this week’s books. First up we have The Black Locomotive by Rian Nughes. I raved about XX, Nughes’s debut book last year, a mind-boggling science-fiction graphic novel that mixed scintillating plotting with big ideas and elements of typography and design that blew my socks off. It has some superficial similarities to its predecessor – certain design elements and a speculative fictional universe – but it a more mature and emotionally engaging piece…

I am from Malawi. I was struck by what the Malawian comedian Daliso Chaponda said on Britain’s Got Talent – that he is the only stand-up comedian in Malawi! I thought, what kind of people are we, who don’t laugh? During the pandemic I have been watching No Direction Home comedy shows online. I even recorded a few ‘I am not a comedian’ videos on YouTube of myself having a go at comedy. But don’t waste your time checking them, unless you just want to dedicate some time to adoring my face. Last year, I was having a conversation with Megan from Coventry City of Culture 2021. Ihe asked me if I would consider to be part of the upcoming comedy training. My first reaction was: “OMG, do I look…

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 help, we will continue to support them once the crisis has passed. The right to citizenship… The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps magazine sellers to tackle social and financial exclusion. Prevention… Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses that deliver social value to communities.…

At 16 I was finally at school in Bolton, doing my GCIEs. I’d spent the three years since I arrived in Britain in dispute with the home office and social services over my age and nationality. By the time I was 16 I was still in legal limbo regarding my refugee status, but they let me go to school. I was put into a foster placement with a wonderful couple, but foster placement was very new for me, so it was very strange. And my brother had left me to go home to support our mother, who was in danger. So I was very stressed out. Things were pretty bad in my life, except at school. I had to flee Afghanistan when I was just 11, after my father was…

I was 18 when S first heard heavy gunfire in the Belfast night air. ›at was in August 1969 when a year of civil rights protesting had culminated in armed chaos. This was essentially the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles, which would continue for three decades and which still stutter on in the form of occasional rioting and attempts to kill police officers. I was 21 at the start of what I call the Year of Chaos in my new book. This period opened with a massive escalation in violence by both republicans of the IRA and loyalist groups. The trigger was an escalation by the state, a decision to intern terrorist suspects without trial and launch army swoops on private homes across Northern Ireland. The first raids took…

NEED HELP? Why not get together with other Big Issue readers on Twitter – @BigIssue Get the answers in next week's mag! Good luck 1. Which US band’s 2004 debut album was called Hot Fuss? 2. In which country is the Bay of Pigs? 3. Who sent the Spanish Armada to England in 1588? 4. What was Eleanor Roosevelt’s maiden name? 5. What did Bridget Jones name her baby? 6. Who painted Primavera? 7. Which musician was born on October 2, 1951, in Wallsend, Northumberland? 8. In which English city is Peaky Blinders set? 9. In which UK national park is Malham Cove? 10. In which year did Prince Harry and Meghan Markle marry? 11. Which pop band’s UK number one hits include Black Coffee, Bootie Call and Under The…