Advertisement
Opinion

The quiet, good people will be our safety net

We launched The Big Issue Changemakers at a very different time, writes editor Paul McNamee. It now feels like these great unsung heroes and heroines are everywhere amongst us.

We launched The Big Issue Changemakers at a very different time. Two years ago, it was a way of celebrating the under-celebrated. We decided to shine a torch on those whose frequently unheralded work was making the place better for everybody.

It now feels like these great unsung heroes and heroines are everywhere amongst us. They come like the shoemaker’s elves. When we feel all hope is gone, with a quiet, unseen calm hand they stitch things together and ask no reward.

It was essential to change the Changemakers, for this year. This list is not just a look at those who will change what comes, because the truth is that it’s incredibly difficult to predict. Events all around present from a parallax view.

Tier 4 has taken income away from hundreds of Big Issue sellers. Support The Big Issue and our vendors by signing up for a subscription.

This year, while those with plans for the coming months feature, we focus more on a celebration of those who helped when Covid gripped, and we seek to learn from what they did.

How to settle on just 100? It’s an almost impossible task. And certainly, you will know of people or grassroots organisations who could easily join the 100. You may also feel like shouting out for teachers, or for freight drivers and delivery people, those who keep the wheels turning, those to whom we never gave a second thought when all was functioning properly, but now we understand as vital. Tell us. Send in your nominees and we shall celebrate them too.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertisement

I never believed in facile soundbites about sunny uplands coming this year. Such things are easy to say but impossible to deliver.

Instead, I believe that the invisible network of good people quietly going about their business because of their concern for others will ultimately be our safety net. And then it’ll help us move to something better.

We will go on. We must go on. Together we stand.

Paul McNamee is editor of The Big Issue

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

SIGN THE PETITION

Will you sign Big Issue's petition to ask Keir Starmer to pass a Poverty Zero law? It's time to hold government to account on poverty once and for all.

Recommended for you

Read All
Delivery bikes outside hotels prove only one thing: The ban on work for asylum seekers must be lifted
Deliveroo delivery person on a bicycle
Nathan Philips

Delivery bikes outside hotels prove only one thing: The ban on work for asylum seekers must be lifted

MPs must vote down Labour's benefits cuts – the health of the nation is at stake
disability benefits cuts protest
Mikey Erhardt

MPs must vote down Labour's benefits cuts – the health of the nation is at stake

Oasis songs speak to people in a way other artists only dream of
Paul McNamee

Oasis songs speak to people in a way other artists only dream of

The broken driving test system proves our public services are fraying at the edges
Stock image of a London street with cars and buses
James Rose

The broken driving test system proves our public services are fraying at the edges

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue