Thank You This Christmas

The Big Issue Foundation's Winter newsletter has recently been published. In it we celebrate the spirit and endeavor of ‘work’. ‘Work’ not just in the sense of a job and a wage but ‘work’ as a sense of purpose, of personal change and a means of overcoming adversity and moving forward.

The Big Issue magazine is unique in that it creates the opportunity for excluded people across the land to work and earn; an alternative to crime, begging, misfortune and more. It is the first step that many embark upon to establish control and alter the course they are taking.

At the Big Issue Foundation, we understand that each step forward is significant for every vendor. We do not dictate the journey of travel or the process of change that someone wishes to achieve. We listen, we share insight, we guide when asked and we collaborate with expert agencies and advisors to help make these journeys possible. We share a mission to create opportunities for change. The Big Issue is the first step and we are the second.

Former vendor Dariusz, this edition’s featured cover story, is now in full time employment with Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. His journey includes a difficult past, English classes, a pair of new glasses (and finally no headaches), an alcohol treatment programme, help with his CV, covering letter and interview preparation. We helped Dariusz with this work all the time whilst he was working selling the Big Issue; team work indeed!

It is important to talk about graft; real lives and real achievements. We helped Emma in London access funding to train and take professional qualifications to become a security guard, Glynn in Bath to use the structure of selling the magazine to stabilize himself, open a bank account and to begin accepting contactless payments alongside cash and Eleanora in Birmingham to manage her work around her family commitments and support her family’s successful application for ‘Settled Status’. ‘Homelessness’ can be indiscriminatory and our frontline teams work tirelessly to tackle the many complex and distressing manifestations of exclusion that we see in today’s society.

We must also say ‘thank you’; thank you to our wonderful supporters, Big Issue readers and believers one and all. Your generous donations, work-place collections, nights sleeping outside and walking the streets all count, all create change and help fund new futures.

Our plan is to increase the support that we can offer to Big Issue vendors. We need to grow our team and reach out to new parts of the country; to be there for whoever we can, wherever we can, whenever we can.

And when we think of the future it is also important to think of the past. The final page of our newsletter features the amazing story of Sabrina Cohen-Hatton. As a young woman she slept rough on the streets of Newport in Wales for two years and sold The Big Issue magazine. Today she is the Chief Fire Officer of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, a psychologist and writer. She has recently become an ambassador for all things Big Issue and is proud to endorse how it changed and saved her life.

So, as the winter nights draw in and our challenges change, grow and persist, I hope this newsletter shows just a little of the impact we have been able to make in the past and in the present.

Thank you on every level for whatever support you have been able to offer. Please do join us in shaping the future.