Every day, all across the UK, people are giving their time and labour to help those around them, for no financial reward.
They are the vast, unpaid workforce of volunteers and informal carers upon whom millions of us rely for support, be it physical, practical or emotional. Without them, our health service and social care systems would be pushed to the point of collapse, government spending would skyrocket and local authorities would be bankrupted.
So how did we get to this point? What would the country look like without a charitable network propping everything up? And how can we better support the people making it happen? We’ve looked at the numbers. And something has to give.
What else is in this week’s Big Issue?
Rick Astley’s Letter to my Younger Self
A difficult childhood brought forth a musical obsession that led to THAT tune. But even after he fled the spotlight, the song called Rick Astley back for a second act that proved even more remarkable than the first.
Inside the Birmingham bin workers’ strike, one year on
After 12 months of a bitter industrial dispute, we visit Birmingham to speak to locals who have lived with a year of rubbish.
“I’ve seen them, they’re bigger than me!” one says of the rats. “They’re not frightened of me, I’m frightened of them.”
