Gustav Thiel
THE people responsible for launching The Big Issue in Cape Town have more than just making a quick buck in mind.
Instead, the editorial staff want to help the homeless and unemployed living in the Mother City and ”offer them an opportunity for change”.
According to the magazine’s editor, Charmaine Bruins, there have been ”several success stories” since the first issue appeared in January this year; like the sex- worker who now says she sells ideas rather than her body.
Monica Max has changed since she became a badged-up member of The Big Issue’s street- wise sales team. From sex-worker to selling a magazine that she believes ”is full of very good ideas for the people”, she has made giant strides towards ”a normal life”.
The magazine is based on an idea that was first launched in England and has spread throughout Europe. The idea basically works like this: unemployed people who register with the editor buy the magazine for R1, 50 and sell it to the public for R3, 50, pocketing R2.
Before they hit the streets, all vendors receive training, sign a code of conduct and can be identified by Big Issue ID badges.
Bruins stresses that, while the magazine is a social initiative project, it is run on business principles and is funded through advertising and sponsorship.
The editorial emphasis is to tackle ”major social issues of the day in quality copy” via freelance writers.
”We aspire towards becoming one of the best magazines in the country, but with a current editorial budget of only R2 000 per month, we’ve had small beginnings.
”I’ve been in the publishing industry for 10 years and, although I now earn almost a quarter of what I did at my previous job, I get the satisfaction of actually helping people to re-establish their lives and that is simply great,” says Bruins, adding that many people ”through The Big Issue have regained their self respect”.
Originally the idea to launch the magazine in Cape Town came from Shane Halpin, who now acts as project co-ordinator and advertising man.
”One of my first ventures into post election South Africa came when I visited the Community Police Forum in Sea Point in May 1994 where the issue of homelessness dominated the agenda,” Halpin wrote in the first local issue of the magazine.
”I decided to add my piece to the pie. ‘Why don’t we give them a job, then they won’t sit on your pavement and upset your customers?’ I suggested to an angry voice who said the homeless people defecate everywhere and are bad for business.
”Then I introduced London’s Big Issue concept to the group. Business representatives suggested that if it helped get homeless people off their doorstep they would support it. And so was planted the first seed of a dream which took more than two years to realise,” says Halpin.
Now The Big Issue boasts 14 000 copies and six annual issues are distributed by registered vendors.
”One day we are going to go weekly and will definitely keep on producing quality articles. All the while, however, we are reducing the number of homeless people in Cape Town,” says Bruins.