The Big Issue

The Big Issue is a UK-based street paper that supports the homeless, the vulnerably housed asnd those seeking to escape poverty. Vendors normally buy the magazine for £1.25 and sell to the public for £2.50. We are using Zinio digital editions to create additonal revenue opportunities to fund our street-based and pastoral care services for our vendors. We are a social enterprise company and all revenues go to support the vulnerable communities we serve. Our goal is to move our vendors away from dependency and towards full time employment

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THE DISPATCH • News, views & miscellany

Chancellor, here’s how your spring budget can start to fix a broken country

The Big Issue

EDITOR’S LETTER • Phone crackdown in schools doesn’t ring true

BIRD’S WORDS • Low wages, lower expectations

LETTERS

How The Big Issue changes our vendors’ lives • It’s National Vendor Week, our annual opportunity to shine a light on Big Issue vendors and other street paper sellers around the world working hard in all weathers to lift themselves out of poverty. Here’s how The Big Issue has touched the lives of vendors and ex-vendors in recent times

BIG ISSUE RECRUIT • How Big Issue is helping more people into work

A view from the street up, in the shadow of China’s might

A WALK THROUGH THE LOST WORLD OF BERT HARDY’S BRITAIN • The ideal picture tells something of the essence of life. It shows some aspect of humanity, the way that the person who looks at the picture will at once recognise as startlingly true

John Malkovich dreams about fabric

LET’S TALK ABOUT MONEY

TONY HADLEY • He was a fighter at school, dabbled in punk and communism, but it was music that saved him from a pathway to borstal

ROSE

Books

Homelessness stalked me all my life, but I made peace with it

Film

Adam Curtis ‘I WANTED TO EXAMINE WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY CAUSE A REBELLION’ • Adam Curtis is best known for bold and innovative documentaries that connect the dots between modern social, cultural and political events. He explains why he’s joined forces with Michael Sheen to make the switch to drama with BBC One’s The Way

ROBIN INCE IS ON THE ROAD

Music

Design

Puzzles

MY PITCH INTERNATIONAL • For National Vendor Week we also want to celebrate vendors around the world who are changing their lives by selling street papers