Inside the Big Issue: Youth Team Takeover!

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.

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.

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.

OnSide is an organisation changing this. Its Youth Zones offer much for now, and for the future. We partnered with them to hear from the people benefitting from them.

In this week’s magazine, you’ll find issues around education, health, identity, music, immigration, fashion… and green bowling. Buy a copy from your local vendor today.

What’s in this week’s Big Issue?

Who wants to be a millionaire? Me!

Simon Squibb experienced homelessness at 15 following a family breakdown, then went on to found 18 businesses and fund more than 70 others. Now he has almost seven million followers. Raees Ahmed, 14, interviewed him about how he could make his dream of becoming a millionaire a reality.

I’m 17 years old. Playing bowls changed my life

“Most people associate bowls with pensioners,” Jake Tinmurth writes, “but I’m not exaggerating when I say at age 17 it’s changed my life. I’ve tried football, tennis, badminton – and bowls is up there with them as a sport. You have to really concentrate, anyone can do it and it’s great fun.”

‘Like you, music was a coping mechanism for my past traumas’

When James Arthur superfan Chloe Jones sat down with the singer, they both opened up with remarkably raw stories of survival and found they had a lot in common – not least in the music that saved their lives.

Promises are easy to break. Sign Big Issue’s petition for a Poverty Zero law and help us make tackling poverty a legal requirement, not just a policy priority.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.