INSP Awards: Announcing the 2019 Best News Feature Nominees

Regular street paper readers will recognise the long running technique of profiling a street paper vendor. Swiss magazine Surprise has chosen to reverse the perspective. Urs Habegger (65), who works as a Surprise vendor in Rapperswil, provides a portrait of one of his regular customers. Katharina Hiller is a pastor; here, she reflects on her path towards the religious life and on the importance of giving voice to social issues.

What if the Queen had the vision of a Big Issue vendor? The street paper asked its team, who sell the magazine across the country, what they’d do if they were Queen for a day as the UK’s reigning monarch celebrates her Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years on the throne. The insights are intriguing.

Megaphone storytellers and vendors of all street papers, including the writers featured in the pages of this Vancouver and Victoria street paper’s Voices of the Street literary anthology, regularly face a host of challenges, all linked to the inequities that come from living in poverty. When Megaphone hosted a series of writing workshops earlier this year, it became clear what was of great importance to participants: our environmentally distressed planet. As a result, the pages of the new edition of Voices of the Street (Stealing Looks at the Sun: Writing About Climate Change in 2022), which is on sale now, are packed full of prose driven by the growing impacts of climate change.

It’s all happening for Big Issue vendor Oprea, 48. Originally from Romania, he has just moved to a new selling point – at Bristol’s Temple Meads train station as part of a partnership with Network Rail – where he is perfecting his sales technique, and he has a new card reader to offer digital payments. He is studying a business course at university too.

Anita Rinkovec’s life has been a journey through many forms of darkness. She is a survivor of sexual and psychological abuse, addiction and numerous suicide attempts and has outlived three of her four children. Now, aged 79, she has found meaning and enjoyment in life and thrives on her work as a Faktum vendor. Here, she talks about moving through the darkness and about the light she has discovered in the twilight of her life.

Having sold the street paper for 15 years, L’Itinéraire’s Daniel Grady explains the reasons why he’s thankful for it as we reach the end of another year.

Put on the elastic pants and serve up a Megaphone meal using vendor recipes sourced from their food memories.

Everyone who is a part of the global street paper network knows what a street paper is – that extends to the staff that put each publication together and those who buy them. But the people who truly know what a street paper is – what it means – are those who sell them. Here, a collection of street paper vendors – from Greece to Australia – tell us, in their own words, what a street paper is, personally to them.

Everyone who is a part of the global street paper network knows what a street paper is – that extends to the staff that put each publication together and those who buy them. But the people who truly know what a street paper is – what it means – are those who sell them. Here, a collection of street paper vendors – from North Macedonia to Canada – tell us, in their own words, what a street paper is, personally to them.

INSP compiled the thoughts of those who sell street papers – made up of some of society’s most marginalised people – on how climate change, environmental disaster and extreme weather affects their everyday lives.

Ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, the global street paper movement calls on leaders to take urgent, coordinated and necessary climate action to protect the world’s most vulnerable communities.

Taoufik Narati, 59, came to Europe from Tunisia many years ago. He contracted polio asa young child and underwent many operations to ease his condition; however, as a young man, he realised that there would be few opportunities in Tunisia for someone with his condition. He has built himself a happy life in Switzerland and feels thankful for his work, selling the national street paper Surprise, and loving family life.

Thirteen years ago, Zeynab Ahmed, 31, fled Somalia after living in fear under the threat of the terrorist militia al-Shabaab. She has since built a life for herself: she lives with her husband and children in Münchenstein, Switzerland and sells Surprise. She sees her future as being in Switzerland but would dearly love to see her mother in Somalia one last time.

‘Empowering The Poor: Street Newspapers and their Global Impact’ was panel hosted by the Society of Journalists on Wednesday 18 August. Moderated by founder of Real Change and INSP board member Tim Harris, the discussion included members of staff from INSP and its associated member publications. Watch the panel again here.

With Covid vaccines being rolled out differently across the world, that means marginalised and vulnerable communities in different parts of the world are receiving immunisation at different rates. But it does mean some good news: street paper vendors are beginning to receive the jab, and with the world opening up again, that’s more than welcome.

Who doesn’t have a song that’s made a special impact on their life? The Curbside Chronicle reached out to musicians from across the US, as well as a few of their own street paper vendors, to weigh in on the tracks that have changed the way they look at the world.