The Man Behind The Jacket

I’m no saint. I’ve never bought a Big Issue magazine. I’d like to think for the most part that I’ve at least acknowledged the vendors and said no thank you as I walked past them but I’m also pretty sure that I’ve done that little side step and avoid a fair few times in the past as well. The “Can you spare any change mate?” blokes, the “Have you got 20p mate please?” blokes, the never ending stream of grubby kids you get tugging at your shirt as you walk around Asia, the guys and girls bowed down with their heads on the floor in Prague, the charity chuggers on the high street and the children on the streets in Philippines. I think I’ve become pretty hardened to it all. I think most people feel a tingle of guilt when they walk past one of these people, I just think that my tingle is weaker than most.

This year TEDxBrum are working with Big Issue West Midlands to bring more awareness to what they are up to and help promote them throughout the region. They very nicely invited the team down to their Birmingham HQ yesterday to get a hands on feel of who they are and what they do. 

A few of the crew and I met up with Becky and Freddie who both work for Big Issue and they gave us a bit of background information about themselves. I knew very little, I knew what probably most people know. Homeless people sell Big Issue magazines and take a cut of the earnings. Becky and Freddie explained the system. Big Issue vendors aren’t always homeless in the way that a lot of people think of homelessness. When I think homeless I think of someone sleeping in a doorway. The Big Issue works with people who are homeless or in vulnerable housing situations. This could be anything from people living in temporary accommodation, hostels and squats to couch surfing from one mates house to another. If you want to be a vendor you have to come down to the office and sign up then you are then given five magazines for free to get you started. That’s the only freebie you get. After that initial five mags everything else, including the red jacket they wear costs the vendor in advance. No freebies. Each vendor has a personal responsibility to manage their finance so that they can afford to purchase stock. Vendors buy the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50. A simple business model but not one I think that many people really know about. 

What I also found interesting is the amount of work that Big Issue HQ do alongside the magazine work. Freddie explained that although they are basically in essence a wholesale magazine seller the work they do socially is vast. The Big Issue puts on hairdressers, chiropodists, dental treatment and blood tests for their vendors and alongside this they work as sign posters to pretty much every social service you can think of. From drug and alcohol groups to housing and benefit advice, they even help vendors get a passport and birth certificate so they can get a bank account and become financially included once again. The Big Issue vendors come from numerous backgrounds and have numerous needs and I was extremely impressed with how a small team of passionate staff and volunteers provided such a huge variety of support with minimal financial backing. The office reflected this as well. A starkly furnished place on the outskirts of town. This was a place that didn’t spend money on making it’s staff happy / comfortable. It spent it’s money on it’s customers. The place had soul.

After learning a bit about how it all works it was our turn to get out on the streets and start selling. We headed down to the exit of New Street station where we met a vendor called Stephen. Stephen was 29 and had been selling the Big Issue for two years. He’d recently got himself a flat and was using his Big Issue money to furnish the place out a bit. I was first up so I put on the red jacket and spent the next twenty minutes attempting to flog mags to the people walking past. 

How did it feel?

I felt like a right dickhead. At first I just stood around mumbling “Big Issue?” to the people I thought I may have a chance with. So this was young people, middle aged women and non scary looking people whilst not even bothering with people with briefcases, hard looking manual labourers and well dressed women. Stephen noticed I was doing a crappy job so he came over to give me a bit of advice. Show off the mag, be confident, crack a few jokes. 

After five minutes of feeling like a right plonker it got a bit easier. I got more confident and didn’t feel so out of place. I even managed to sell a copy to a passing youth which I was pretty chuffed about. After twenty minutes I was relieved of my duty and passed on the red jacket to the next person. Twenty minutes and I was already tired of it. Stephens out there most days from 7am – 3pm. 

Here’s TEDxBrum Outreach team member Clare suited and booted ready to sell.

So what did I learn?

Not surprisingly you are ignored by most people. There are different kinds of way people can ignore you though. The friendly half smile ignore, the loop around and avoid you ignore, the openly hostile facial expression ignore, the nervous mumble no thank you ignore, and the straight up ignore where it seems like you’re completely invisible. It’s hard, and I only did it for 20 minutes. I can’t imagine what it would be like doing it every day. Luckily for me I had no trouble in that 20 minutes but Becky told us earlier in the day that every Big Issue vendor had been verbally assaulted at one point and most of them had been physically assaulted. People on the streets bully them, try to steal their magazines and take their money alongside numerous other things. It’s a bloody tough job.

Job.

I want to emphasise that. At the start of this blog I put Big Issue sellers in the same category as the beggars I’d encountered all over the world because before yesterday in reality they would have fell in the same category to me. Not anymore. These people are grafting, grafting bloody hard to pull themselves out of a shitty situation and into a brighter tomorrow. They’ll stand out on the streets to make maybe £20 in a day if they are lucky. Becky told us that if they went around asking for spare change off people they would probably make £60ish a day. They have made the choice to work, they’ve taken that step. Would I make that decision? Would I take a pay cut for a harder job? I don’t know if I would, I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to do that. These vendors are inspirational. A lot of people talk about how people should get off their arse and work instead of waiting for a handout and these Big Issue vendors are the best example of some one who is doing that that I can think of.

Next time I walk past someone in a red coat I’m going to do a couple of things. First I’m going to think about who the person is behind that jacket, think about the fact that they have taken the positive step to work for their living when it’s so easy to sit down and beg instead. Then I’m going to buy a bloody magazine. It’s £2.50 for Christs sake. Most of the people reading this will spend that on a coffee. Next time you see a Big Issue vendor I urge you to do the same.

If you would like to learn more about the Big Issue then you can follow the West Midlands branch @BigIssueWMids or read a bit more about the organisation on their website.