The Big Issue
by Sean McGahey
Interviewed by Olivia Richwald 2002
The Big Issue is sold by homeless people in every town and city in Britain. It started in a grotty basement in Richmond, London; the embryonic magazine was distributed from the back of an illegally parked van in the West End. Today the magazine is sold by between eight and ten thousand homeless and vulnerably housed people nationwide.
The Big Issue is the brainchild of Gordon Roddick – the co-founder of The Body Shop – and John Bird. The two proprietors come from very different backgrounds. Roddick started by making Peppermint Foot Lotion, while Mr Bird was an orphan in a Notting Hill slum.
The magazine has 35 regional offices and it has spawned similar street papers across Europe, South America, Australia and South Africa.
Every week in Britain The Big Issue sells between 280,000 and 450,000 copies. Vendors buy the magazine for 60p, and sell it for £1.20, making 60p profit. In the magazine’s main office in London, about ten editorial staff work alongside a pool of freelancers and a design team. Freelancers are paid the market rate and come from many areas including former work experience students, and former members of staff. The magazine is financed by street sales, which account for about 70% of the magazine’s revenue. Advertising contributes the other 30%. The Big Issue Foundation is funded through the magazine and it is also a registered charity.
Read more on this article that first appeared in MediaMagazine 2, December 2002 – visit this excellent site – http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/
Go and buy a copy of “The Big Issue”
November 29th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Finding no other means of contacting Big Issue promoters, and having looked at various websites, I use this to ask for an answer to my question- why have none of the vendors of Big Issue whom I approach heard of or are attending English classes. All are foreign, with such poor English that it would be difficult to find employment. Basic Skills classes are of course available in all local authorities, and have been well-funded in the last few years. I have been involved in them as a volunteer. No mention is made in Big Issue’s listed aims of teaching English, and I am left to suppose that this important step is not given sufficient weight, in the pressure for dignity and a little cash through selling Big issue. I would like a reply, please. Mrs.A.Blaney
September 29th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
The Big Issue is a brillientway in which people can have money in pockets and not have to steal from shops for food.
Everyone should purchase The Big Issue. When we have Comic Relief in less that 24 hours, millions of pounds are raised.
Which is brilliant. The Big Issue is something that volunteer should also come out and sell when possible, and giving the money back to The Big Issue, which in term should hand it back to homeless people.
In a country such as England and Wales, not one should be homeless. The Government needs to rethink the way in which people are houses, or not housed.
Gorden Ruddick and his late wife Anita and John Bird has shown how social enterprise should be done and the success of this. The Government on the other hand would appear to be quite happy to have people homeless and in need. That way, they themselves, can continue to have well paid jobs.
It is not in the Governments best interested to solve the homeless problem…then they would be out of a job. Government meaning whoever has been or whoever is in Government in Britain.
NJ Smith
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