Big Issue begins with opportunity. Our founding principle is a hand up not a handout. We offer those who are frequently marginalised and on society’s edge an opportunity to lift themselves up and into something better.
This can come through trading the magazine, through the work of Big Issue Invest in spotting and supporting people and organisations to help their business grow, in Big Issue Recruit, bringing jobs for those too long unable to find one that works for them. It also comes in our editorial. As well as reporting, we believe in offering a platform for voices to raise. Not messages chosen by us, but by those with the lived experiences that are often shut away and not heard or not understood.
Last year, we gave over Big Issue magazine to people with learning disabilities. Working with Mencap, that edition was created by and wholly featured those with disabilities. It offered a unique, and inspiring, insight. It was a landmark edition.
This year, we wanted to hear from an easily maligned part of our society – young people. They are often marked out as either apathetic or trouble, self-consumed and always on screens, selfish not engaged, snowflakes and not ready for the world as it comes.
This reductive idea also comes in tandem with a closing of opportunities for them – particularly in social and community spaces. The closure of youth clubs and youth areas in the UK has been marked since 2010. The figures are stark.
According to research by Unison, between 2012 and 2019, 760 youth centres were closed. Around 4,500 jobs were lost in youth work. It saved only £400 million. When you realise that by most reckoning, every £1 saved will cost up to three times in lack of earnings and in future crime costs, the false economy is writ large. That’s without considering how horizons are shut down.
