Innholdsfortegnelse for 1/16/2023 i The Big Issue

01 Father Vitaliy Novak Depaul Ukraine Russia’s war in Ukraine has left death, displacement and injury on all sides. Anti-homelessness charity Depaul Ukraine, headed by Father Vitaliy Novak, is providing lifesaving aid – reaching 23,000 people every day. The Big Issue first spoke to Father Vitaliy in March. Depaul reports that “food continues to be in short supply. “Families have made outbuildings their homes or are living in houses with blown-out windows and bomb-damaged roofs.” Depaul was established in the country in 2007 as a response to homelessness. In Ukraine temperatures can go as low as -20C, leaving many at risk of death. @Depauluk 02 Settle Settle is a charity for young adults when they leave the care system. It helps them to learn practical life skills, stay on top…

45 Get it Loud in Libraries Bringing communities together through music, Get it Loud in Libraries focuses on new and emerging musicians – counting little-known artists Adele and Florence + the Machine among those who played a library gig and later went on to some success. The project aims to deliver shows in places where live music events are rare. Affirming the role of libraries as essential community hubs, plus engaging young people in the arts are big goals for the project. They expand on this through their academy programme, which offers training and work experience for young people interested in the creative industries. getitloudinlibraries.com @LoudInLibraries 46 Hen Hoose An all-female and non-binary songwriting collective and production house based in Glasgow, Hen Hoose was founded by MALKA – aka singer/songwriter…

76 Mick Lynch “People are fed up with having no rights in the workplace,” Lynch told The Big Issue. “They are fed up with low pay and they’re also fed up of billionaires raking in profits.” Mick Lynch has been the figurehead and even-handed spokesperson for workers across Britain who feel left behind. Seen by some as a divisive figure, he’s nevertheless changed attitudes to striking workers. In his position as secretary general of the RMT he has attracted praise for tackling hostile narratives with levity and wit. “We’re getting a wave of public sympathy and we want to see that rolled into a campaign to get a fair deal for all,” Lynch said. As we move into 2023, his position as an important leader beyond his own union grows.…

The 16-year-old Tim had a veil of bravado shielding a lot of insecurity. I had huge insecurity about coming from a lower socio-economic background where my mum was working numerous jobs to make ends meet as a single-parent household. I grew up seeing my friends with two parents at home, not understanding why my father wasn’t around. My younger self was also exploring the world of the opposite sex – and pretending I knew everything. I struggled with authority trying to navigate the world of education. Although education was heralded as the passport to success, I found school frustrating. The process-driven nature of school didn’t suit me and I was endlessly getting into detentions. When I came back to school at 14 or 15 after being excluded for truancy, I…

I was born in Blackburn in Lancashire. My dad was in the military, and so we moved to Germany when I was young. When I turned 20, I got called for National Service in Germany. My dad had already moved to London so I decided to join him instead. However when I got here it didn’t go so well. My dad had a new wife and they had a daughter together, and all of us living together just didn’t work. Suddenly I found myself in a city I didn’t know with nowhere to live. It was a lonely experience not knowing anyone, so I started squatting. It seemed like a better idea than sleeping on the streets. You have a roof over your head, four walls and a door, you…

At the end of this month I am 77. January 30, the day I was born in 1946, saw a debate in the House of Commons about – among other things – the German prisoner of war crisis. I left the hospital some days later to be brought up in two slum rooms in nearby Notting Hill. Money was scarce; rats, mice, fleas, bedbugs, rattling windows and freezing cold neglect were in abundance. This was poverty and it was surrounded by illness, violence, drunkenness and crime. I was not alone in this experience. I had two elder brothers and was to have three more. Ninety per cent of the housing of the working poor, for that was the condition of most people even decades ago, was substandard. That meant little…

14-15 Tripe Marketing Board and We Care foodbank Earlier in the year we featured Ray Barron-Woolford on the cover of The Big Issue to highlight the work he was doing with his community hub in Deptford, South London. Just a few months later, Barron-Woolford’s We Care foodbank was looking at permanent closure after it received a £33,000 energy bill estimate for 2023. But it was saved by a Robin Hood-style fundraising odyssey, after a group of friends calling themselves the Tripe Marketing Board (TMB) stumbled across an accidental goldmine in the world’s fifth-biggest company. The TMB use the name to promote their self-published books. One such book is Forgotten Yorkshire and Parts of North Derbyshire and Humberside. On Black Friday Amazon reduced its price from £10 to 99p. However, it…

There’s a brilliant Netflix show about a specialist Israeli intelligence unit, called Fauda. I looked up what Fauda meant in Israeli and it translates, brilliantly, as ‘chaos’. In the show, whenever a mission is compromised or one of the spies finds themselves in a gunfight, they shout “Fauda! Fauda!” into their walkie-talkies to alert their colleagues. My wife and I got so invested in the show that we started messaging the word ‘fauda’ to each other whenever small domestic problems arose. Run out of milk? ‘Fauda!’ One of the kids is sick and wants a day off school? ‘Fauda!’ Ha ha. Aren’t we amusing? Well, nobody is laughing in my house any more. Because these days we are living in a completely unironic state of genuine domestic chaos. Yes, friends,…

32 Just Stop Oil No environmental campaign group got more people talking last year than Just Stop Oil. Their approach – closing roads, attacking art, scaling buildings – created conflicted reactions, but it brought focus to the crisis we’re in. To avert planetary catastrophe the group is calling for a government commitment to end all new licences for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK. “Another year has gone by and the stakes continue to rise,” Just Stop Oil spokesperson Sean Irish told The Big Issue. “We have seen this government’s failings with the cost of living, energy, and climate crises; 2023 needs to be the year of civil resistance. If this government will not grant us a liveable future then, like movements of the past,…

70 Ayve Couloute Girls Into Coding Couloute started coding and attending computing workshops at the age of seven. Now 15, her passion and talent for coding and tech is still thriving. In 2018 she founded Girls Into Coding, providing free workshops and learning opportunities for girls between the ages of 10 and 14 on topics like coding and robotics. Each year her organisation aims to get 1,000 girls involved, and 2023 is looking to be the most exciting year yet. “You are never too young for your ideas to have value,” Ayve said. “I want all girls to feel empowered to access opportunities to learn how to code and develop their digital skills regardless of where they come from.” girlsintocoding.com / @girlsintocoding 71 Stuart Lawrence It’s 30 years since the…

94 Bail for Immigration Detainees Q&A What was 2022 like for BID? Last year we witnessed grave attacks on our human rights in the UK. The Nationality and Borders Act combined with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Judicial Review and Courts Act and the proposed overhaul of the Human Rights Act represents a power-grab that seeks to make the government unchallengeable, silence dissent and erode the institutions that hold it to account. But we also witnessed incredible resilience, resistance, coordination and creativity from our team and the human rights sector as a whole. What was BID’s greatest achievement? Last year we helped gain the release of 313 people who were granted bail, defeating the government when it tried to hold people in detention. We also helped…

REVIEWS A trip back in time marks a welcome return There are few authors who can split opinion like Bret Easton Ellis. Bursting onto the literary scene at just 21 years old with Less Than Zero, he found himself at the centre of a moral panic in 1991 when the publication of his novel American Psycho was greeted with protests and accusations of misogyny. This didn’t stop the novel from going on to become a modern classic, however. Ellis has been somewhat quiet on the book front in recent years. His last novel, 2010’s Imperial Bedrooms, garnered the most varied reviews of his career and he has spent most of the last 13 years writing screenplays of, once again, varying success. When news came at the end of 2022 that…

CLASSICAL A celebrity dynasty’s darkest secret When New York magazine ran its recent cover story on Hollywood nepotism it marked the culmination of long-running online discussions about ‘nepo babies’ – the offspring of famous parents who enjoy glittering careers in film, fashion and suchlike. The article – and the surrounding chatter – focuses on the born-famous; Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis), Zoë Kravitz (Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet) and others who have obtained unicorn creative roles. Then there’s Brooklyn Beckham, who, despite being born into enormous wealth, cited his new job as a chef for the reason he could afford a car worth a million. He and other nepo babies might like to acquaint themselves with the ‘equity vs equality’ diagrams. In one example, people of…