Selling the Big Issue gives dignity to people in crisis
Make a contribution to help support more vendors to reach their goals
“I want to work.”
That’s an empowering statement for somebody in a crisis situation who may be suffering with low self-esteem. When a person contacts the Big Issue, they don’t need to declare that they’re in poverty, or that they’re homeless or they need help. They simply tell us they want to work and often within the day, we will have helped them to locate a pitch, offered sales coaching and provided them with 5 free issues of our award-winning magazine to get them started.
There’s a level of dignity that comes with employment that can’t be provided by charity. We are not offering a hand-out, we’re offering a hand-up and if they work hard, they can sustain themselves selling the Big Issue.
Vendors come to us with all different levels of skills and experience, and some of them may never have worked before. Selling the Big Issue changes the way they look at themselves. They start building a routine, creating a network of customers and create stability; this makes a profound difference to their self-belief. As their confidence grows, they find themselves able to make more positive changes to their lives.
We don’t fix vendors problems for them; we work alongside them and give them the tools they need to help themselves. This helps us to build trust. Vendors open up to our support team and as they do, we’re able to offer them pathways to help them improve their lives.
But we can’t do this without the help of our generous supporters. Could you make a financial contribution to support more people to work their way out of poverty?