John Bird: The Big Issue (Context.)
· Early life- John Bird was born in a Notting Hill slum to a family living in poverty. By the time he was 5, he was already homeless and due to this resorted to thievery for survival. He spent a lot of time in and out of prison during his teens because of this. He was educated in prison, only learning how to read and write when he was 16.
· John attended the Chelsea school of art in the 1960’s, a prestigious art school in London before becoming homeless again in 1967, this time living and begging on the streets of Edinburgh.
· Bird got the idea for the big Issue when in New York and was helped by Gordon Rodick (founder of the Body Shop) when setting up the magazine. The Body Shops ideologies align heavily with The Big Issue’s. For example:
- ‘We exist to fight for a fairer, more beautiful world… our society remains desperately, deeply, unfair and unequal.’
-Business can be a force for good’
· Like The Big Issue, the Body Shop aims to help contribute to shaping society into a more equal role and shows that Business can help those who are struggling in a positive, fair way instead of just to uplift the rich. The Body shop also has a partnership with ‘Youth Homelessness.’ They often donate money to the cause and help aid in housing young homeless people, showing their determination in getting the homeless off the streets.
· In the present day, John Bird speaks on social enterprise, social mobility and the arts in the houses of Parliament. He has a central focus on the future generations and poverty prevention and often speaks up and votes in ways that contribute to the equality of society.
· This information highlights birds integral view for The Big Issue- ‘a hand up, not a handout.’ He wants the Big Issue to allow homeless people and those in poverty to free themselves from the dependency of begging and to take a step away from being the problem to being a huge part of solving it.
· We started the Big Issue, and we ran into all the problems. We stood up and we said, “Look, what we want to do more than anything is give people the opportunity to make their own money”—a hand-up, not a hand-out. Later on, we started a charity, and we melded those together. We helped them to get ready to become capable of finding the means to help themselves. But many people could not get to self-help, so we held their hands, and we keep on holding them -https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c65dd81af46834afd07e40a/t/5fc374c1145a8629dc1ce621/1606644933712/lives+retold+bird+john.pdf
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