INSP was pleased to offer another round of scholarships this year, supporting 19 delegates from 13 countries to attend the Global Street Paper Summit that took place in Manchester in August.
The scholarship programme allows international street papers – from as far afield as Uruguay and South Korea – to join us at the summit and share in a week of inspiring talks, ideas and networking.
Dave Hamilton, Creative Director at StreetWise in Chicago, said the scholarship allows for a much needed boost in morale when working as part of the street paper movement.
“It is so important for me to realise that I and StreetWise are not alone, and there are so many papers doing similar work, and we are all only an email away,” he said.
“Seeing all of the other employees and papers is really inspiring. This is my second summit, and both times I have returned more motivated and inspired to be the best street paper we can be. It feels like the summit resets me, and makes me more passionate.”
“Seeing the amazing variety of publications gives us something to strive toward and shows us smaller papers what is possible.”
Scholarship support goes towards funding travel and delegate places at the international gathering. This year, 54 street papers from 28 different countries were able to attend.
Delphia Simmons, Director of Thrive Detroit in the USA, shared her delight in being able to exchange ideas and knowledge with her international peers.
“The summit provides a way to for each of us to bring the energy of our work to one place. The result is that we all return to our countries energised and more empowered to do the work,” she said.
“Seeing the amazing variety of publications gives us something to strive toward and shows us smaller papers what is possible.”
Jasna Krapac, Editor of street paper Ulične svjetiljke, told us there are specific aims she has been able to take back to Croatia thanks to the summit.
“Next year we celebrate our ten year anniversary and members at the summit gave me so many great ideas I have already shared with others in my newspaper,” she said.
The annual summit allows for street paper delegates to share ideas and plan ahead for other events throughout the year, such as #VendorWeek.
Jasna continued: “Besides that, I want our paper join #VendorWeek in 2018, and discussions on the last day helped me to learn a lot about that.”
With scholarship support, Liceulice’s Program Co-ordinator Nikoleta Kosovac was able to travel to Manchester to join the summit. She told us of the inspiration she had to make some editorial changes and make better use of the INSP News Service.
“We are actually discussing starting a regular special two-pages with content from other street papers in future issues,” she said. “I already suggested to our editorial staff the idea of starting a special edition too.”
“Attending the summit is like pulling into a gas station when you are running on fumes.”
Hans Van Dalfsen, Director of Dutch street paper Z!, has attended several summits in the past, and told us he always comes away with a new idea or ideas to implement from every summit.
“If you want to help your paper to survive you will have to be resourceful and persistent and have a DIY mentality,” he said. “The summit provides you with a tool box full of practical stuff and in the meantime is able to boost your morale.”
Hans shared a fitting analogy with us, which resonates with what scholarship recipients have told us about their experiences of the summit: “INSP and the summit every year inject me with a dose of energy, inspiration and persuasiveness that is highly fruitful. Attending the summit is like pulling into a gas station when you are running on fumes.”
