John Bird, MBE, is a British social entrepreneur, who is best known as the co-founder of The Big Issue, a magazine which is edited by journalists and sold on the streets by vendors who are homeless or vulnerably-housed. Bird sits as an independent Crossbencher member of the House of Lords.
His Early Life
Bird was born in a Notting Hill slum to a poor London Irish family. He became homeless at the age of five, was put in an orphanage between the ages of seven and ten, and was often excluded from school. He became a butcher's boy after leaving the orphanage, and supplemented his income by stealing. Between work, he spent several times in prison during his teens and twenties where he learnt to read, write and the basics of printing. Bird attended Chelsea School of Art, but was homeless again by 1967, sleeping on the streets of Edinburgh while being looked for by the police for many offences. In the early 1970s, he started to build upon his prison education and set up a small-scale printing and publishing business in London.
Gordan & Anita Roddick
Gordan and Anita Roddick were business partners and were the founders of the well-known cosmetics company, The Body Shop, producing and retailing natural beauty products which shaped ethical consumerism. The company was one of the first to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals in some of its products and one of the first to promote fair trade with developing countries. They were also involved in activism and campaigning for environmental and social issues, including involvement with Greenpeace and The Big Issue. Roddick opened the first Body Shop in 1976, with the goal of earning an income for herself and her two daughters while her husband was away in South America. She wanted to provide quality skincare products in refillable containers and sample sizes, all marketed with truth rather than hype.
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