Spring Kids Cover Competition

Spring is here and our Kids Cover Competition inspired hundreds of young readers to send in their brilliant art, all created for this year’s theme of ‘Peace’. The winner was six-year-old April Floyer from Northampton, whose artwork features on this week’s cover. Her concept – a safe bed to sleep in –resonated with us, and also our judge, renowned Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler, who said: “In such troubled times in the world, it was great to see the younger generation thinking about and expressing the importance of peace, kindness and having a safe place to sleep.”

Also inside

• What will happen to the activists who are refusing to pay their water bills?
• Springwatch presenter Michaela Strachan looks back on a wild career in her Letter to My Younger Self
• The founder of Playrise explains why her charity is bringing play to children in conflict zones
• Why historian David Olusoga thinks our detachment from gun culture may be coming to an end
• Babies, a new BBC TV drama, sensitively explores some painful truths around miscarriage and its aftermath
• Comedians explain why working the stand-up comedy circuit is no laughing matter
• Bideford vendor Sam Oates is happy, thriving and making art after working really hard to turn his life around

And much more

Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week – or support online with a vendor support kit or a subscription – and help people work their way out of poverty with dignity.