Where I come from we are taught not to give money to homeless or beggars. It sounds ruthless, doesn't it?!
Well we are taught that it is really a state issue that some people are living in the streets and that it should be the government taking care of those who are in the worst situation and getting them to a situation where they can start making choices again. we are taught that giving money to homeless is encouraging this issue to be considered an individual one instead of a society one.
I really thought it made sense and kept myself firm when crossing paths with someone asking me for money in the street.
When I moved to London I never bought the Big Issue for those reasons and felt ok about it.
Tonight a friend of mine came for dinner and keft a Big Issue at my place. I just flicked through and thought it was actually not that bad. Even quite good. The kind of magazine I could buy at a news agent... I read the bit about how it is sold and thought it was brilliant. It changed my mind.
I will buy it from now on, only if the cover gets me interested becawuse I want to stick to the non charity side of helping people.
I think you should have a look at it and maybe like me you might change your mind about it. Just sharing with you... You never know, you might be selling it on the street like me very soon...
-
-
DominicGee
- 2008-09-18 @ 11:55:21
-
I don;t give money to beggars, but I fully support the Big Issue as it is an actual solution to the problem of homelessness - it works for many of them and as it says on the front "Not Begging but Working" which is true. The magazine is actually decent too, I admit I don't read it all... but even John Bird said in his column that you shouldn't buy it if you don't like the magazine - he want's the vendors to be treated as equal - he doesn't want people buying it out of sympathy which is interesting.