Want a reason to be cheerful? Across Europe there are people trying to do the same thing as Big Issue

I had to rise and get to Stansted early to catch a cheap plane to Madrid a couple of weeks ago. My bag was heavy because I always bring books, worried I’ll run out of stimulation. In the cold light of an early November morning I regretted my agreement to give a keynote speech at an award ceremony of a European collective that covers 34 countries with 180 groups represented. 

I sat through the two-hour award ceremony and I was astonished at the incredible work being done across Europe, including the UK and Ireland; across the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, into Turkey and the island of Malta. Spain, Germany – no country seemed left out of the range of the European Social Services Awards, run by the European Social Network. 

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Vilnius city council in Lithuania, with its ‘telling fairytales’ bringing together old people and children for storytelling, won one of the first awards. What an inventive and inspiring ambition to expand the healthy life of ageing people, crossing the divide between generations. Keeping older people mentally active and allowing children to experience storytelling builds communities and creates strong bonds that we should all be imitating.  

The Northern Ireland Social Care Council won an award for raising social service standards, tackling the need to deliver improving services at a time when budgets are being cut and demand is increasing. Supporting those people at the coalface who have to help when help is desperately needed. The story of their struggle to improve through coordinated efforts across Northern Ireland drives home our need also to understand what people in need require. Support the supporters so that they can support better. 

The Strengthening Communities and Social Inclusion Award went to Bucharest Sixth District Council Food Bank in Romania, expanding on the provision of food with efforts of social inclusion. Food as a first step to getting people into a better place to counter the conditions that brought them into need. 

The Children, Families and Youth Support Award went to the Miriam project in the city of Brussels in Belgium. Once again an innovative project that tackles need across generations. The holistic response is the only answer: you can’t treat one part of a person, only the whole person. 

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My role as described by the organisers was to get on the stage and inspire people by my example. How a failed child from the problem became a part of the solution. Fair readers, you will have heard it quite a few times if you have paid attention to this column over the years. But new audiences are dazzled by Big Issue. How it came into being.

My years of espousing the cause of Big Issue, and my natural-born need to combine humour with seriousness, worked on an enthusiastic audience that night in Madrid. In a ceremony that I sat through at first reluctantly but was immediately inspired by, by its commitment by example to improve standards across Europe. To converge the energies that need converging if we are to dismantle the poverty that stalks the lands. 

The Disability and Accessibility in Social Services Award went to ‘Everyday Active’ in Warsaw, Poland. Addressing the issue of not allowing disability to be a break on a full life. Going beyond the ramps, so to speak, that are so important in ensuring the support gets people active and included in life. 

The Private-Public Social Services Award was an interesting take on the uses of AI for social good. Dumfries and Galloway Council, working with the company Beam to improve delivery through AI to social workers, will be a development to watch as we rush helter-skelter into an artificial world.

Hopefully such uses will refine our abilities to improve through science in the same way that the robot is now helping doctors and surgeons to do a better job, to go beyond the limitations of being human. Yes AI could be a godsend, albeit mixed in with a sea of negatives. 

What a brilliant night I had fallen into. Converging, connection, concatenation; joining together and making change possible through joint effort. Across countries and across languages, uniting in the one language of destroying poverty. 

I left Madrid, after an obligatory visit to art galleries, alive to the efforts of so many to drive forward our universal needs for social justice. The thing that particularly inspired me was this sense of ‘convergence’ across countries and experiences. Bringing examples for us all to follow. Innovation everywhere. 

Of course, if the British government truly wanted to kick the arse out of poverty it would have a ‘converging’ government department that brought together efforts to improve the lot of people in need, while at the same time devising ways of poverty prevention and poverty cure. And they might call it the Ministry of Poverty Prevention, or some such thing. And try and hit on the head that disparate, uncoordinated governmental practice of breaking the fight against poverty down into little unconnected initiatives. The ESN (European Social Network) did underline for me that convergence is the name of the game.  

Oh yes and the smallest country, Malta, is doing a sterling job of coordinating its social services and winning the Leadership in Social Services Award for its efforts. With Oliver Scicluna of Aġenzija Sapport leading that innovation. 

I’ve left out loads. A look at the ESN would be a great fillip if you’re looking for ‘reasons to be cheerful’, to borrow a line from the great Ian Dury song. Be inspired, say I.

John Bird is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Big Issue. Read more of his words from our archive.

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