Community Stories

We believe that humans are holistic beings, hence we strive to prevent them from being broken. In as much as the people we support seem to present with socio-economic problems, a closer look at their difficulties shows that these stem from many other areas of their lives that are not limited to socio-economic aspects. As a result, we acknowledge and recognize different areas of their lives like psychological, cultural, religious and health aspects.  We try to delve deeper into their lives to understand exactly the support that they need because different people need different types of support.  For most of the individuals we support at The Big Issue, their physiological needs come first before all others. Food, shelter, clothing, and access to clean water comes first. Consequently, we support them with food parcels and clothing items as we know the associated costs help with family and household saving. Through funding from the Spirit Foundation, we have launched a Vendor Support Services programme to help vendors fix a toilet; replace a leaky roof; install a security gate; or provide learning materials for their school-going children. In every instance, the vendors also have to contribute some of their own time and/or money towards these upgrades. Sustainable ingredients for a Win-Win-Win partnership.