“We’ve known a great many patients for a long time. They come back to us over and over again,” says Franca Fischer, 24, a nurse in the Central Emergency Room of the Diakonie Clinic in […]

Please note: This article includes descriptions of sexual assault. Kiara Meza, 24, a pregnant mother of two, crawled around on the floor in pain. She had tried to convince the staff at her city-funded youth […]

“My family keeps asking me, ‘What are you going to do? How will you pay for your studies?’” says Manita. “I have no idea what we will do. We experience anxiety and stress, we think […]

I have been off methadone since 13 April 2024, and I feel healthy — both mentally and physically. After 18 years on the medication, following years of heroin addiction, I knew that quitting wouldn’t be […]

Garth Mullins has spent years telling other people’s stories — amplifying voices of drug users through his award-winning podcast Crackdown and organizing with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). Now, he’s turned the […]

Award-winning CBC journalist Cathy Browne began her journalism career at age 65 — just five years ago. But her connection to the CBC runs much deeper. A self-proclaimed “lifelong CBC Radio fan,” Browne has been […]

Gulls gather in the rain. Together they alight, flock and wait on the diamond for a man and his bread. Come, watch his hand glimmer while he casts a fortune of crumbs.        […]

Grace Chen and the Ovaltine Cafe are a testament to resilience and relationships. Through an escalating overdose crisis, the upheaval of COVID-19, an arson fire and the loss of her mother last year, Chen — […]

When was the last time you saw a fattening pig? Never. This was the response given by over half of the respondents in the Swiss region of Lucerne two years ago, despite 430,000 pigs living […]

Switzerland Population: 9 million People at risk of poverty: 1.34 million Working poor: 298,000 Poverty line for a family of four: just under 4,000 francs (€4,280) Average cost of raising a child to the age […]

In theory, they’re supposed to wear a vest. A yellow one, so that they’re visible from a distance. But hardly anyone does – except for Guldzhan Kurbanova. On a sunny September day, I met the […]

What would it take for the world to start listening to Deaf people? In 1988, this question sparked a civil rights movement when Gallaudet University, a Deaf school in Washington DC, was taken over by […]

“It just takes that little bit of pressure off,” says Emily, as she picks up a bag of free dog food for her furry family member. She has been visiting Second Chance Animal Rescue’s (SCAR) […]

Divided into a sequence of poetry, paintings, photography from the I Have A Name project (a public outreach initiative that works with people experiencing homelessness), along with quotes from the participants who shared a portion of their […]

While Mart Veldhuis studied at art school in Utrecht, he constantly worried about how his life would be affected by his student debt. Would he be able to buy a house in the future? Would […]

When Andor premiered in 2022, it became an unlikely critical darling: a gritty, ground-level Star Wars prequel without a lightsaber or Wookiee in sight. There was a genuine interest in the lives of ordinary people […]

Apropos: When was the last time that you were unsure about the veracity of an online article? Ingrid Brodnig: One example of when I didn’t know whether something was genuine or not was when Rowohlt […]

As we introduce ourselves, we get used to the workarounds. Name. First name. Wolfgang. Vasile. We shake hands again. Country of origin. Location. Romania. Slănic. Vasile struggles with the cardinal points. Alina thinks it has […]

Shelby Wallington is seeing her clients and staff begin to panic as President Donald Trump’s administration proposes historic budget cuts that could impact Medicaid, a service on which nearly a quarter of Washington, DC residents […]

Apropos: What defines good air? Arnulf Hartl: Air that is low in particulate matter (PM). PM is one of the biggest health challenges the world faces. A glance at the stats makes this very clear […]

Eule no longer has a mohawk. “Unfortunately, no hair grows where my colourful mohawk used to be,” says the 54-year-old, holding his skull up to his computer camera as proof. He now lives and works […]

In 2024, a representative survey on the living conditions of homeless and housing-insecure people in Cologne shows that an estimated 11,740 people were experiencing homelessness in Cologne, of whom 633 were 65 or older. According […]

Trott-war: I’m very excited to hear what you have to say. Before we get started, a simple but very important question: How are you? Lea: I’m doing well! A lot has changed since back then. […]

Following months of speculation and a flurry of recent executive orders, housed and unhoused Washingtonians alike are left wondering what the future of their city looks like under the Trump administration. On 28 March, Trump […]

Tasha Cooper worried, like any parent would, when her son, Jayden Hoyle, didn’t come home from school on 8 April 2022. But it was Friday, and Cooper assumed that her son was safe with friends. […]

I live in Cologne and transport everything I own with my bike trailer. It has a tent in it, which I haven’t used yet because the weather has been too bad so far. It has […]

In Uganda, where more than 1.4 million people live with HIV, access to life-saving antiretroviral medications has been severely limited due to the Trump administration’s decision to freeze USAID’s funding to Africa and other parts […]

Across three studio albums and numerous collaborations, Marlon Williams has endeared audiences the world over with his commanding voice, inimitable stage presence and stories of sorrow. Now, on his fourth record, the Christchurch-born, Lyttleton-raised artist […]

Melissa Fisher spent years embarrassed and in pain due to the state of her teeth. During her teen years and young adulthood, the Adelaide-based artist cared for her disabled mother. They couldn’t afford braces for […]

On 12 April 1923, 200 Chicagoans attended a public debate, chaired by the notorious sex-positive “clap doctor” Ben Reitman, between three university students and another trio who identified themselves as “hobos”. The question was whether […]

Urban gardening and community allotments have grown in popularity in recent years. Existing gardens have been expanded, and new ones have been established, but many have also started growing produce on their own windowsills, balconies […]

In a sunny atrium atop G Street’s Epiphany Church, eight Street Sense vendors sang together. “Lean on me when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on.” Away from the […]

On 14 March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the elimination of all “non-statutory components and functions” of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), an independent federal agency tasked with “preventing […]

One of the irrefutable facts of Solomon Ololagbose’s life is that Thursday is a good day. Even the weather can’t change that. He might freeze his fingers off for hours outdoors, because the sun doesn’t […]

On 15 January 2024, a Hochbahn guard pulled René out of Hamburg’s underground for begging on a train. For breaching the conditions of carriage, he was expected to pay a fine of €‎40 – again. […]

“Art has the power to communicate important social messages,” says VenUs Urban Art’s Livia Fabiani, “including that of female empowerment and gender equality. “In 2019, I won a scholarship to conduct research on female street […]

A pair of scissors, a basin and lots of little shampoo bottles: “you don’t need much to transform a bathroom into a beauty salon,” says Giulia Ortolan, 33. Originally from Montebello Vicentino, she originally moved […]

The world is in turmoil – including the world of social media. Users hadn’t yet recovered from the fact that Trump’s best friend Elon Musk has turned X (formerly Twitter) into sewage pit, filled with […]

My grandmother Klári had dark curly hair that had already gone grey by the time I knew her. When I was a small child, she lived in a high-rise building in Queens, New York, where […]

When the script for Dope Thief’s pilot episode landed on the desk of Brian Tyree Henry, the actor’s immediate thoughts didn’t concern the show’s plot or the character that he was set to play, but […]

Bindi Irwin has had an allergic reaction. It’s not entirely clear to what (I’m spared the gory details), but in keeping with her family’s seemingly DNA-ingrained, exhaustive work ethic, she has pushed through. Irwins don’t […]

They filled dancefloors in the early 80s with their global smash ‘Tainted Love’ and forged a decades-long career across six albums, including much-loved debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. Now, Marc Almond and his band Soft Cell […]

The idea was born during the 2005 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty demonstrations in Brussels. A group of people experiencing homelessness arrived with a fake coffin and a list of the names of […]

I’ve lived such a difficult life, but since I started selling Faktum, I’m living my best life. The fact that I have to leave feels so unfair. I celebrated my 80th birthday here at Caroli. […]

Maria, 68, is standing outside Ica Möllevången with her shopping trolley, wearing a long black down jacket. She has been a Faktum vendor for 10 years, and this has been her pitch since the start. […]

My wife and I met in my childhood town of Santander, Spain. She is Romanian, and in September, we will have been together for 20 years. In Spain, the economic situation was tough in 2010, […]

Your nerves are really put to the test during a trip to Ikaría: first in the small propeller plane that lands on the short runway with the heavy brake tracks, then at high altitude again, […]

Following a social media post by President Donald Trump, DC closed a large encampment next to the E Street Expressway with only a day’s notice. The city also closed two other encampments in late February […]

Enjoying music is simultaneously a very personal and a collective experience – we create our musical taste independently, but may be influenced by feelings of belonging to a group or a wider cultural scene. Girls […]

Whether he’s unleashing a shrieking amphibious mutant, the wrath of a vengeful mother or the stench of class warfare, the filmography of Bong Joon-ho can be characterised by its singularly bleak sense of humour. And […]

On the edge of a mound in east Montreal lives Francis, the owner of a small, isolated cabin insulated with rock wool and heated with propane. “I’m used to living outside, and I know how […]

Apropos: You have fought against resistance your whole life, both privately and professionally. What kind of resistance was there, and where did it come from? Rotraud A. Perner: I was and still am definitely far […]

Hinz&Kunzt: Ten years ago, we were still talking quite differently about refugees. In 2015, Angela Merkel justified her policies by saying that refugees “often have to overcome situations or endure fears that would probably break […]

“She’s earned the right to rest and have someone wait on her,” said Mark Gaskin of his Aunt MaryLou. Gaskin, 61, lives in a tent trailer down the street from his 82-year-old aunt’s apartment, and […]

Maria and Juan’s life together began in a shrimp processing facility in Venezuela, where they worked long hours to support themselves. “We peeled and sorted shrimp until the early hours of the morning,” Maria said. […]

No, he’s never been to jail, says Dumitru Onica, laughing as he strokes the hardened skin on the back of his hand. Across it stretches a spider web of faded, hand-poked tattoos – letters that […]

I’ve come to realize something: a trip to the psychiatric ward doesn’t always have to be a bad experience. But the moment that put me there sure was. Honestly, I thought it was an urban […]

People with mental illnesses are the only group routinely denied the right to choose their own medical treatment. The BC Mental Health Act permits authorities to involuntarily commit and treat people with “serious mental health […]

One August afternoon last year, during my shift as a Chinatown Steward, I was going about my day collecting needles and trash around Pender and Carrall Streets in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). My partner Kathleen […]

A series of mass protests in Serbia began in Novi Sad following the railway station canopy collapse in the city on 1 November 2024, which left 15 people dead and two severely injured. The protests, led by university students, have […]

After waiting three years for a housing voucher, Nikkie Smith had a vision for her apartment—namely, that it had a light color palette and was a place to call her own. In the green and […]

As families gathered for the 34th annual Women’s Memorial March, an air of quiet reverence settled over Main and Hastings in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories. On 14 February, beneath the growing […]

A program for one of the most comprehensive Indigenous training providers in Canada got its start at an NHL hockey arena, and it has since supported two generations of young adults through a comprehensive lineup […]

Any Vancouver local or Megaphone loyalist has likely spotted Stephen Scott’s vibrant setup at the corner of Davie and Thurlow Streets, proudly showcasing not only his stock of magazines, books and calendars, but his love […]

There are 64 countries in the world where being LGBTQI+ is illegal. Every year, about a thousand flee to the UK, where, since 2015, 10,974 have claimed asylum. However, that comes with its own challenges. […]

During a wide-ranging 90-minute speech to the US congress of 4 March, Donald Trump revisited his determination to “get” Greenland “one way or the other”. Trump said that his country needed Greenland “for national security”. While he […]

Sometimes AI isn’t as clever as we think it is. Researchers training an algorithm to identify skin cancer thought they had succeeded until they discovered that it was using the presence of a ruler to help it […]

You can’t get anything past Mike Leigh – not even his own words. At 82, his latest film, Hard Truths, continues his life-long commitment to what he calls “heightened realism”. As with each of his […]

It’s 9:30am on Friday 14 February 2025. Valentine’s Day. I’ve just posted about the 10th Australian woman killed this year. She was allegedly killed by her male partner in what sources close to the investigation […]

As the group made its way through the crowded streets, it became increasingly difficult to stay together, especially when the average age of said group was around 70. I was trying to temper my own […]

On 27 January, President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a sweeping memorandum freezing nearly all federal aid, including funds for homelessness and domestic violence service organizations. While the decision was quickly […]

When the group of fluorescently dressed volunteers reached the edge of the biggest remaining encampment in Foggy Bottom, they paused. Juwan Rosa, a caseworker at Miriam’s Kitchen, distributed handfuls of Visa gift cards to all […]

When doctors told Morgan Jones, 65, his liver was failing, Jones had to worry about more than his health. At the time of diagnosis, the Street Sense vendor was homeless. Born in DC, Jones had […]

A move away from housing first solutions to homelessness. Further criminalization of sleeping outdoors. Cuts to housing programs. These are some of the changes advocates and people experiencing homelessness worry could be on the horizon […]

What is homelessness? Ask someone walking down the street in a US city, and they are likely to talk about people sleeping on park benches, or in tents pitched in a park, or perhaps folks […]

It has taken decades for some to accept the devastating effects of climate change on our planet. Despite scientific evidence that was available years ago, many people were reluctant to make the connection between increasing […]

Refugees are providing energy within camps home to millions of displaced people around the world, my research has found. There are now more than 120 million forcibly displaced people globally. Although United Nations (UN) humanitarian agencies provide firewood […]

The UK aims to be the first country in the world to create new offences related to AI-generated sexual abuse. New laws will make it illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to generate child […]

Talking about climate change is never easy. The issue is complex and upsetting. Headlines bring bad news way more often than good news. Techniques based on the extensive analysis of theories and research from social psychology, sociology, […]

When Igboanugo Anyichukwu comes to Salzburg for the first time, he does something that many people do: he gets on the bus No. 150 in the direction of Bad Ischl. While the people sitting next […]

Emanuela Evangelista was born in Rome in 1968. She studied biology at Sapienza University in the city, where she lived until, about 25 years ago, she left for the Brazilian Amazon rainforest to study the […]

Nasim Eshqi, a free climbing athlete who has opened more than 100 new routes on Middle Eastern and European mountains, was born on 21 March 1982 in Tehran, Iran, but as she often says, “I’m […]

Have you heard this spooky story before? There’s a creaky, centuries-old manor, the dysfunctional family that’s just moved in, and a spirit that peers at them from dark corners. This timeworn template retains its psychological power […]

Apropos: Your eyes light up at the phrase “searching for clues”. Why? Bettina Ludwig: For me, it’s a total nerd topic. Within cultural anthropology, I specialise in hunter-gatherer research, and specifically in animal tracking. I’ve […]

How can you be unmoved by his his soft blue eyes, his candid laugh and his confident demeanor? At L’Itinéraire, Maxime, 64, is well-liked by everyone. He enjoys expressing himself through his writing in the […]

There is a secret to scrutinising life: often, what is essential is invisible to the eye. It was in New York in 1943 that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry published The Little Prince, a work that entrusts […]

The International Network of Street Papers (INSP) have gifted around 8,000 newspapers and magazines sold by people experiencing homelessness and poverty to Glasgow Caledonian University. The Glasgow, Scotland-based charity, founded in 1994, represents 92 street […]

Perhaps I should start by stating the obvious: not so very long ago there was no such thing as smartphones or laptops. There were computers available in labs or perhaps in the hands of the […]

Until last summer, around 50 unhoused people lived in a fenced-in plot of land owned by the California city of Sacramento. The site didn’t have running water or electricity, the soil was contaminated, and city […]

The vendors’ journey Jakob opens the discussion by asking Daniel how long he sold L’Itinéraire. “I was a magazine vendor for 14 or 15 years,” Daniel says. “I was homeless when someone from the shelter […]

The move was a stroke of luck for Nicole*. The reserved, softly spoken 42-year-old previously lived in shared supported accommodation for people with mental ill health in Kirchdorf-Süd, but experienced problems with a flatmate. “That […]

Wellness is a beautiful novel, with so many themes that I had to slow down my pace while reading to take it all in. At its heart, it seems to be about a couple’s marriage […]

It is daytime, but Jassir is lying in bed; he has been for several weeks now, ever since the large wound on his right thigh became badly infected. He reads the newspaper, unaware of what […]

Dear Ruth, Right now, life is good and busy. You love your parents and life in a big family with eight siblings. Very soon, at 14, you will get your first job. Then, at 17, […]

Dear Lionel, I know you just turned 14 and I do admire your life at the moment: growing up on the farm, milking the cows, looking after the house and animals, playing rugby, hunting and diving […]

Dear Jas, How goes it? Wait, I already know: you’re stressing out over love, life, money and time – will you have enough? Stop it. You end up a pretty decent human and as it […]

Dear Young Glenn, Where do I start? Writing a letter to you gives me a lot to think about. Looking back, what would I change? I know one thing for sure: right now, in high school, […]

This gallery has no gift shop. These masterpieces were not commissioned by MONA or the Medicis, but The Big Issue. And what we have on display is the power of creativity, demonstrated by artists who sell […]

Resting is trending. This decade has seen much discussion about setting personal boundaries, listening to oneself, and even the alarming global rise of burnout. In Finland, the most common reason for long-term sick leave is […]

High walls and barbed wire: you can’t miss the Stuttgart correctional facility. “Building 1” rises up like a fortress. The short wing of the historic prison building borders the residential area. In the north of […]

World leaders have gathered for the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. One of their main goals is to align their responses to geopolitical shocks such as floods and wildfires that hamper trade, investment and […]

It took Christi Buchanan and Ricky Plunkett two years to get to Colorado from Texas. The two fled their home in East Texas to get away from a life of addiction, poverty, and trauma. Buchanan […]

Through the Academy of the Street, people experiencing homelessness incorporate their own life stories, which are often viewed as failures by societal standards, into drawings, paintings, photography and texts, transforming experiences such as rejection and […]

“Architecture and cinema have a lot in common,” says Brady Corbet. “It’s not like writing and recording a song in your bedroom. It’s not like painting a painting. It requires so much infrastructure and personnel.” […]

“People give the show more credit than it necessarily deserves for heightening the satire of work,” says showrunner Dan Erickson of his dystopian-absurdist series Severance, “when in reality, a lot of it is just pretty […]

After 467 days of violence, a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel has been reached and will come into effect on 19 January, pending Israeli government approval. This agreement will not end the war or bring about peace. […]

The earth’s climate experienced its hottest year in 2024. Extreme flooding in April killed hundreds of people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A year-long drought has left Amazon river levels at an all-time low. And in Athens, Greece, the ancient […]

The report Hovering Threats The Challenges of Armed Drones in Humanitarian Contexts by Insecurity Insight, released on 14 January, shows that recorded incidents directly affecting aid and healthcare programmes in conflict zones rose almost four-fold in the […]

According to a new report released on 16 January by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), China, Israel, and Myanmar were the leading jailers of reporters in 2024, followed by Belarus and Russia. The main […]

Monica’s son-in-law has been ill for a long time. Neither of his kidneys are fully functional, but the family cannot afford a transplant. A pension of €200 won’t get him very far when €10,000 are […]

It smells delicious as soon as you enter the Haus Elisabeth day centre. A queue of people who are hungry and looking forward to a warm meal has already formed. Community service worker Markus and […]

Hinz&Kunzt: The German Federal Minister of Labour, Hubertus Heil, SPD (Social Democractic Party) has named the current state benefit the “biggest state welfare reform in 20 years”. What is your perspective on this after two […]

“My mum always follows through with whatever she sets her mind to.” As a young woman, Carmen Beer promised her mother that she would help her to die when the time came. “With youthful recklessness,” […]

PLEASE NOTE: this article contains reference to suicide. In April 2023, I attempted to take my own life to get to a better place. I survived my attempt to poison myself, but suffered internal physical […]

PLEASE NOTE: this article contains reference to childhood sexual abuse. People experiencing addiction and homelessness have always formed groups, because it makes survival and obtaining what we need easier. We have lived everywhere. Many buildings […]

Economic crisis and the beginning of deindustrialisation in the 1980s, then the ex-Yugoslav Wars and economic sanctions in the 1990s, all led to women over 45 to become one of the most vulnerable demographics on […]

I was born in Novi Sad, and I’ve lived here all my life. My family have always been poor. We’ve lived a very hard life. We’ve been more hungry than full. My dad was an […]

In Paris, for only the third time ever, a Refugee Olympic Team participated in the Olympic Games. This grouping of athletes was set up in 2015. During the United Nations General Assembly in October of […]

In January 2009, the former Hotel Weimar became the Social Hotel Weimar, named after a street of the same name not far from the centre of Stuttgart. It was bought 15 years ago by outpatient […]

What is publishing’s role in changing the narrative on homelessness and poverty? Often, people with experiences of homelessness find it difficult to, first of all, find the time for writing, but second of all, access […]

INSP: What role do you think technology and media can have in creating change? Judi Alston: I think what technology, media, and creativity can do is speak to something that’s part of the human condition. […]

What inspired you to create the original Homeless Tartan? I just thought that the idea of people buying things and a portion of the money going to charity was like a no-brainer. It was always […]

I am sitting on a colourful chair in the square by the European Parliament. It’s a sunny day in the middle of the election campaign, and across the square sits a huge billboard urging people […]

PLEASE NOTE: this article contains details of kidnapping and sexual assault. I started selling Faktum in Gothenburg after my friend Janne tipped me off about it. Back then, the magazine’s office was on Stampgatan. Janne […]

The Head of the Kindertrauma-Institut (Child Trauma Institute), Rose-Marie Wellek Mestian, recommends not getting caught up in family clichés and instead finding a type of family that is just right for you. In this pre-Christmas […]

For those who didn’t vote for Trump, the outcome of the US election may have left you feeling shocked, disappointed, or even enraged and bitter. However, if you’re open to it, I invite you to […]

Standing on the steps of Grace Episcopal Church in Northwest DC, US, Jeff watches his dogs hunt for rats. The sunny, cloudless day matches the feeling of contentment that Jeff exudes — there have been […]

The interview with Andreea takes place in the foyer of the Hotel Auersperg. I have come from the Hotel Zum Hirschen, where I was staying after my lecture at the ‘Literaturhaus’ in Salzburg. Andreea has […]

I’m in an abandoned school on the outskirts of Puumala, Finland. I must stay here for the next two weeks while waiting to be admitted to my actual rehabilitation centre in Kisko*. They want to […]

It was one of those days. I tried to pull myself together by having a cup of coffee at the Salvation Army. The coffee tasted bitter because I was too lethargic to reach for the […]

Art Garfunkel knows a thing or two about singing in a duo. As half of Simon & Garfunkel, his angelic tenor graced some of the most enduring songs of the 1960s, from ‘Mrs Robinson’ to […]

Emma Cutting’s garden started from a tiny bit of non-tarmacked dirt on the curb outside the front of her home, and some good advice from her garden-savvy neighbours. That was over 10 years ago, in […]

“It’s not just items – it’s peace of mind,” says mother-of-three Jaime of the impact that a local baby bank made to her young family. It’s a busy weekday morning when we chat on the […]

Is your wardrobe overflowing, yet you’re still missing a trendy item for the party on Saturday? Then let’s go clothes shopping. As long as it’s cheap, quality is secondary, true to the motto, “I’ll only […]

The life expectancy of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe is 10 years shorter than that of the general population, as noted by the World Bank in 2003. In Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, […]

“There is darkness within all of us,” says Lily-Rose Depp, who stars as the tormented Ellen Hutter in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. “There are things we share with the world and things we don’t, but that […]

In the middle of the night of 1 August, Mirabella, 22, is woken up by intense pain. Immediately, she realises that something is wrong. She goes out into the night to go to the toilet, […]

Being a Refugee was created at the suggestion of Karl-Hermann Blickle, the founder of the Stuttgart Teaching House Foundation for Interfaith Dialogue. The foundation sees itself as a bridge-builder – a unifying motif to which […]

In hindsight, it’s unmistakable. I was carrying on like I had a bone to pick. And pick it I did, like a scab, ensuring its rawness. At the time, I was trying to understand, to […]

Passing the torch has become a cinematic rite of passage for film franchises, with many a sequel doubling as a family reunion. This year alone, moviegoers have returned three decades later to hang out with the […]

Demonstrations are an important part of democracy, which is why they are enshrined in Germany’s constitution. Article 8 states: “All Germans shall have the right to gather peacefully and unarmed without prior notification or [requesting] […]

Amphibians are vertebrates. They live in wet conditions and their breeding practices requires them to remain by bodies of water. They spawn in water and have fully developed water-permeable skin. Smaller amphibians such as newts […]

Four years ago, when Saparomäki Animal Sanctuary was offered a piglet by a pig farm, both Princess, an adult sow, and Paavo, a piglet, got the chance to live. At the time, Paavo weighed only […]

“Would you like to answer a few questions about empathy?” “Yes, let’s go over here,” Jasu calls out while doing laundry at Vailla vakinaista asuntoa ry (VVA) in the Vepa, a peer and volunteer activity […]

A young woman wearing black eyeshadow walks onto the stage. “Hey, guys, are you in the mood?” she asks the audience. Xenia Brandt’s broad grin is infectious. The crowd in the sold-out Mathilde Bar in […]

On the day that I meet Ifeanyi Maduakor, it feels like the end of autumn, but it’s only mid-September. The sun is already very weak, hidden above the clouds. I expect it to rain any […]

Apropos: What does confidence mean to you? Lisz Hirn: I see confidence as a deeply human attitude. If you are confident that something can change for the better, it doesn’t mean that everything’s going to […]

“I started living again, I wrote, I sold newspapers, I flourished,” writes former street paper Linda Rennings about getting back on her feet after years of homelessness in her autobiography, Rebel of the Street: Female […]

On some bitterly cold winter mornings, Sarah* wakes to see frost on her bedroom window. When she returns home from work in the mid‑afternoon, the frost is often still there. Situated next to a towering apartment […]

The end of pandemic-era benefits, which provided nearly $30,000 on average to many low-income District of Colombia (DC) families from 2020 to 2022, has left some facing food and housing insecurity. According to a new […]

Under the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Montreal, Canada, an unusual scene unfolds. Sylvain, a street vendor of L’Itinéraire, asks the famous Quebec rapper Souldia a simple question: “Have you ever had any gold records?” With a […]

In December 2021, the UK government published From harm to hope: A 10-year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives. The strategy pledged to combat substance harms by not only addressing the issue at […]

Dr. Dean Connolly is a Specialty Registrar and NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Public Health Medicine. Their research focuses on LGBT+ health, including drug and alcohol use. “Since 2018, I have had the opportunity to […]

WithYou is a drug, alcohol and mental health charity based across England and Scotland. “About half of our clients are alcohol clients,” says Robin Pollard, Head of Policy & Influencing, “so it’s a really core […]

Dr. Abi Rose is a Reader in psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, specialising in girls’ and women’s alcohol use. Her research interest developed from laboratory-based alcohol research to applied health research after the birth […]

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is caused by drinking during pregnancy, and affects numerous aspects of brain function, including executive function, memory, communication, cognition, focus and social skills. In the UK – which has the […]

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is caused by drinking during pregnancy, and affects numerous aspects of brain function, including executive function, memory, communication, cognition, focus and social skills. In the UK – which has the fourth-highest […]

Katherine Severi is the chief executive at the Institute of Alcohol Studies and chairs the communications and advocacy group for the Alcohol Health Alliance. “The Institute of Alcohol Studies is an independent charity,” Severi says. […]

Alcohol Change UK is the UK’s leading alcohol charity. It works across the whole range of serious alcohol harms, from mental and physical health to the societal and economic. “We want to see a world […]

In December 2021, the UK government published From harm to hope: A 10-year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives. The strategy pledged to combat substance harms by not only addressing the issue at […]

Despite the early morning, it’s all go at the Guest House, a Christian faith-based homelessness facility in Dortmund, Germany. People wait in a queue outside the building, and inside, every seat is filled with breakfast […]

In 2018, the Atikamekw Nation formalized its child welfare system, the Atikamekw Authority Intervention System (SIAA). Meanwhile, the Innus* of Uashat mak Maliotenam are on the verge of voting on their own law on child […]

A small, red car crosses the river over a stone bridge and pushes its way up a hilly forest road, not far from Covas do Barosso, a 200-person-village in the north of Portugal. It is […]

A man with a cowboy hat and sunglasses sits in a wheelchair on Ostenhellweg in Dortmund, Germany. He has a dirty bandage on his left foot. There is a coffee cup on the floor in […]

Germany’s largest care service provider, European Homecare (EHC), and Switzerland’s ORS Group have turned what were previously state-run social services into a lucrative business. EHC has been offering “social care services” since 1989 and operates […]

Long-term high ultrafine particle concentrations in New York state neighborhoods are linked to higher numbers of deaths. That is the key finding of our new research, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. Our study shows […]

The legacy of slavery in America remains a divisive issue, with sharp political divides. Some argue that slavery still contributes to modern economic inequalities. Others believe that its effects have largely faded. One way to measure the legacy of slavery is […]

Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions of immigrants if he is elected to a second term, claiming that, among other things, foreign-born workers take jobs from others. His running mate JD Vance has echoed those anti-immigrant views. Researchers, […]

Cetin still looks the part of the last few weeks. His eyes are still swollen; there are still bruises on his nose. He was only discharged from hospital a few days ago. He was there […]

Imagine two single parents raising toddlers in DC. One has an annual salary of $65,000, while the other earns $11,000 a year by working part-time. Their financial situations seem quite different; the parent paid more […]

When I was 14, my siblings and I fled with our mother from Somalia to Kenya. My mother wasn’t doing well, so I ended up in an orphanage. I came into contact with some older […]

My life right now is good because I have Thomas. We’ve been together for 10 years, and I love him. He’s the best person I know. He’s always so kind to me. The first time […]

Poverty is one of the key issues that many Roma people face and represents a massive obstacle in the context of education. Parents’ inability to afford school equipment and uniforms and provide school dinner money […]

I was born in Belgrade, and I love this city. I went to college for Science and Engineering. It was an interesting but difficult experience. I was in the Faculty of Organisational Sciences, but once […]

Five days per week, I travel into Vancouver from Surrey using public transit. I use the Expo Line. It is loud, screechy and nerve-wracking. The suffering and anxiety that I feel from the oblique noise […]

Lance Lim, a disabled Strathcona, remembers one incident during the 2021 heat dome well. The temperature was sweltering — record-breaking, in fact.  Lim was ascending a staircase in his home when suddenly, he blacked out. […]

Megaphone’s Hope in Shadows calendar is an annual product — loved by vendors and customers alike — that goes on sale every year around Thanksgiving. But production of the calendar starts at least six months […]

Delivering terrifying thrills and spine-chilling scenes to eager audiences isn’t a nightmare for Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival’s Artistic Director Meghan Hemingway — it’s a dream come true. Now in its seventh year, the festival […]

Megaphone vendor DJ has been participating in a series called Eco-Processing that Hives for Humanity has been hosting at the Healing Garden, 117 East Hastings Street, Vancouver. Throughout the summer months, DJ — who is […]

Another two Megaphone vendors — Eva Takakenew and Richard Young — are taking a journalism course at Langara College this autumn as part of an ongoing scholarship program. The initiative provides basic journalism training to […]

On 31 August 2022, I moved to Victoria, British Colombia on Vancouver Island. My friends Michelle and Sara moved my stuff their vans. I rode in Sara’s van with several boxes while Michelle hauled my […]

I visited Compton, California in February and May of this year and I plan on going back again. I’ve been a fan since childhood of gangster rap and American ‘hood history and love travelling there. […]

Noise. Deafening and ubiquitous. From the left and right, the motors of the countless passing cars drone on from behind the wheels of the inter-city express on a nearby railway bridge. “That is my accommodation,” […]

Sister Maria Gratia flits fleet-footed across the worn marble tiles, past depictions of saints and solid wooden furniture that has dulled over the centuries. Her habit rustles as she hurries through the narrow corridors, the […]

Monday afternoon. Married vendors Valerica and Luminița and I are sitting in the courtyard of a hotel in the Schallmoos district. We’re still waiting for the photographer and the interpreter. To while away the time, […]

About a decade ago, my grandparents got into a minor car accident while on holiday in the New Forest when a bull ran into their car. The bull was unharmed, the car less so, so […]

“Wham!” shouts Iosif, 61, slapping his knee. “A car knocked me off the road while I was crossing the zebra crossing.” He gestures in a wide arc with his hand. “I flew through the air.” […]

On 11 September, rounding out the second day of this year’s Summit, delegates gathered in the Museum of Liverpool for the INSP Awards 2024. The ceremony recognised street papers’ accomplishments across six categories: Best Article/Journalism, […]

Trott-War: The KPÖ’s recent electoral successes are impressive. In Salzburg, your party’s municipal mandate increased tenfold, and with Kay-Michael Dankl, your party holds the Deputy Mayor position.  What is the KPÖ doing right that other […]

The last European bison was shot in the Caucasus Mountains in 1927. But today, there are approximately 7,000 of them in Europe. All of the bison alive today come from zoos and breeding programmes; thanks […]

Jürgen Baisch, founder and active patron of the Institute Water for Africa, described the urgent situation in Africa at a conference in his hometown in the Black Forest. He has been involved in water supply […]

A year ago, I wasn’t doing so good; not good at all. I have some physical and mental health problems, including anxiety and PTSD. My mental health was at an all-time low. I had left my […]

Two days ago, they brought Luka, my youngest child, to the closed ward of the psychiatric hospital in Ljubljana. He had called me and said that he couldn’t see any way out anymore. If he […]

I experienced pregnancy in 2020 under challenging circumstances. Still, I don’t remember ever going through anything harder than what I did after the birth of my son. During my pregnancy, while staying in Stigma’s safe […]

I am brave, I’ve heard people say. Brave? No, not in the least. Just a dad. Just a dad standing by his child’s side, wishing them nothing but good. Isn’t that what dads are supposed […]

Before Isgard Klein joined the Rautenberg Society’s Housing First project as a social worker this summer, she worked at a city-run emergency shelter as part of Hamburg’s winter relief programme. Each morning, she witnessed hundreds […]

It’s one of those warm summer days when I arrive at Lund’s central station. I buy some croissants and head to the address that I was given. The entrance is next to a square where […]

The afternoon light casts long shadows over the deserted parking lot. A few abandoned shopping carts stand behind the massive shopping centre, Tillmans Corner, just outside Mobile in southern Alabama. Cory, who moved here from […]

On the left side of Albertus-Magnus-Haus, a path leads down to where the retirement home kitchen used to be. Now, it is home to three treatment rooms, a laboratory, a room for confidential discussions with […]

Sorin Modoc is well versed in dealing with delays. While the interpreter relays questions and answers, he rests. When he talks, his features transform: expressive and nuanced, his face mirrors the story. Even as he […]

For the first time in many years, Tunisia has overtaken Libya as the primary departure point for Europe after last summer’s mass migration to, among others, the Italian island of Lampedusa. Behind the increase lies […]

Drinking alcohol is often seen as morally neutral, and in some societies it is both desirable and encouraged. In Serbia, we drink when we celebrate, but we also drown our sorrows. When something nice happens, […]

If you’re walking down the street and someone stops you to ask if you’d like them to read you a book excerpt, don’t worry, it’s not a scam. Chances are, it’s a volunteer from Le […]

Life started going downhill for me in 2010, when my wife died. Then my daughter moved to Sydney. She hasn’t come back to Serbia since then. In 2013, when my mother died, I was left […]

Liceulice: You had big plans after the release of your album Singer of Tales, but your concert tour was thwarted by Covid-19, and then quite quickly after the end of the pandemic, you released another […]

A gentle knock. There is a man behind the glass door. He is crying, leaning on the door handle. Barbara Winter, 58, the manager of the Healthcare Centre for the Homeless, was expecting him. The […]

She takes her time today and applies sunscreen very slowly and thoroughly on her son. They will follow the others a few minutes later. Claudia has learnt from her mistakes last year. She also spent […]

Telling donors that their neighbors have provided high-quality furniture, clothing and other goods can cut the number of worthless items that charities receive in half. That’s what my colleagues Sindy De La Torre Pacheco, Mahyar Eftekhar and I […]

Lachlan 1996 Paralympics Atlanta 2000 Paralympics Sydney 2004 Paralympics Athens Winning gold at the Atlanta Paralympics in the men’s T32 100m was the biggest achievement of my life. To this day, I still don’t know how I […]

Pointing out that someone else is wrong is a part of life, and journalists need to do this all the time – their job includes helping to sort what’s true from what’s not. But what […]

This summer has shown how quickly high temperatures can pose serious health risks, with record-breaking heat waves claiming thousands of lives around the world. However, it’s not just high and low temperatures that matter. How many degrees the temperature […]

White men who have personally experienced mistreatment at work, such as bullying, are more likely to realize that their organization does not always operate fairly. And that makes them more likely to recognize and report race […]

Forty-six years ago, on 8 August 1978, Philadelphia police surrounded the house occupied by the controversial MOVE organization in Powelton Village with the intent to evict the predominantly Black group. The result was a shootout that left police […]

Each summer, nearly 10,000 hectares of rice is cultivated in the Florida Everglades Agricultural Area, a roughly 2,800km² area south of Lake Okeechobee. Farming here requires a delicate touch. The area has lost nearly 1.8m of […]

Ruschullina is the white maiden who puts leaves on the trees and makes the fruit trees blossom. The boy, Iuon, has longed to meet her since his father promised to bring her to him when he […]

Painter Jerry Rael has something to say, and he uses his painting as his platform to share his thoughts. Rael paints abstract images of Native men and women, often on horseback in beautiful landscapes. He […]

Johanna Mieth was born on 9 April 1909 in Oppelsbohm into a strictly religious family. Her father ran a small shop and rented out rooms to pensioners and poor travellers. When her family moved to […]

On 28 June, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6:3 in favor of the Oregon city of Grants Pass in the Grants Pass v. Johnson case, allowing cities to impose fines and criminal […]

For such a small beach, located along the coastline of Lake Washington in Seattle, US, a lot has happened concerning Denny Blaine Park. In December 2023, advocates seeking to preserve the nude beach celebrated a […]

As Portland, Oregon, US experienced deadly, record-breaking heat in early July and hundreds flocked to emergency cooling shelters, the city ordered its private contractors to post over 120 homeless encampments with sweep notifications. Advocates say […]

After advocating for abortion rights professionally for years, Liz Starke, development director at Rose Haven — a day shelter and community center for women, children and nonbinary people — faced a very personal decision earlier […]

In front of me is a 400m² industrial space with high windows on two sides. The sun has just broken through the clouds and is shedding light on what will, in a few weeks time, […]

Opened in November and running until April of this year, the “ex-Inpdap” dormitory, managed by the Italian Red Cross, has hosted almost 200 people, responding to a need that “ex-Alimarket” (linked to the Red Cross) […]

Detroiters who face rising rents, poor living conditions and systemic barriers to affordable and safe housing are at greater risk of poor health, our research finds. We study the connection between housing inequities and health, with the […]

People living in US states that enacted tighter abortion restrictions in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, which returned regulation of abortion access to state legislatures, are more likely to report elevated levels of […]

As a science communication scholar, I’ve always supported vaccination and trusted medical experts – and I still do. As a new mother, however, I’ve been confronting new-to-me emotions and concerns while weighing decisions about my son’s health. Vaccines […]

Toledo Streets: Tell us about your background with the foster care system and child protection services. Mother: We fostered two little girls who were in the system, then adopted them. How can parents familiarize themselves […]

The child welfare system is complicated. The system removes children from harmful and potentially lethal situations and strives to ensure familial connections. It also has a long history of inflicting trauma, and creating harm in […]

Having been raised by my mother, Sanja Jennings – an avid native plant conservationist and overall environmental “geek” – I’ve grown a great appreciation for the Oak Openings Region. With this beautiful area that we […]

Twister, the iconic 1996 disaster thriller about a ragtag crew of storm chasers, was grounded by the sturdiness of screen legend Bill Paxton. It’s only fitting that rising star Glen Powell, who is set to […]

It’s early afternoon, and Ethan, Ember and Josie are gathered around the counter of the Baptist Care SA Community Food Hub in Adelaide’s Central Business District. The three volunteers are a little puzzled because they […]

No matter where you are in Seattle, Washington, US — driving down 1-5, walking in Capitol Hill or taking in the waterfront — you will see graffiti. Some people hold the artform in high regard, while […]

The only non-profit newspaper in the city of Portland is expanding. Street Roots has just moved into larger premises in order to improve its services and become accessible to more vendors. L’Itinéraire asked DeVon Pouncey, […]

Apopos: What does this project mean to you? Cornelia Thöni: I have an ardent desire to improve the quality of life in my surroundings. For me, this sparks a very important question about self-efficacy: How […]

Hinz&Kunzt: When was the last time you felt a sense of homeland? Solvejg Nitzke: When I came to the Ruhr region by train on Monday. I always notice that because I actually find that sense […]

She has a few German words in her repertoire, but she tells most of her story in her native language. Ionela, 26, is Romanian, and comes from a southern village near Pitești, with a population […]

The US Supreme Court issued a decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson on 28 June, reversing the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals injunction barring the southern Oregon city of Grants Pass from enforcing ordinances […]

Reproductive rights are defined by the United Nations Convention as the “fundamental rights of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the […]

Liceulice: You’ve recently experienced something new: wearing the Liceulice vest while selling the magazine alongside our vendors. What were your impressions? Ana Djurić Konstrakta: What left the strongest impression was people avoiding you when you […]

I was born in Belgrade, the very same apartment that I live in now. I acquired hairdresser qualifications, but I’ve never worked as one. I’ve held many jobs in the course of my life, and […]

Anybody who has kept an eye on the news will know that 2024 is seen as ‘election year,’ with over 40 elections happening worldwide, and a strong rise of sentiment against the LGBTQ+ community. An […]

“She’s an incredible storyteller,” says Jodie Comer. “Vivacious, confident and honest.” She is describing her character Kathy – the beehive-sporting, fast-talking narrator of writer-director Jeff Nichols’ latest film, The Bikeriders. However, these words could easily […]

On 22 May, community members including educators, childcare providers, and youth and education advocacy organizations introduced the No I-2109 campaign to stop the initiative from repealing Washington state’s capital gains tax. When it went into […]

A Resting Place (ARP) is a grief and cultural resource center nestled in Seattle’s historic Chinatown-International District where the idea of grief is reframed. In Western culture, grief is often interlinked with a feeling of […]

Last year, more than 500 transphobic bills were introduced across the US, according to a 2024 UCLA study conducted by the Williams Institute. In 2022, 23% of youth who identified as Indigequeer — Indigenous people […]

Having regular access to a cohesive kitchen might not seem like a privilege, but it is for the residents of the Nickelsville Tiny House Village in Northlake. The kitchen is described by residents as functional — to […]

We know one main thing: shelter is not being offered to most people being swept from street encampments in the US. There are hardly ever enough shelter spaces available. According to a decision upheld by […]

I come from a small town in north Alabama, US, nestled in the picturesque Tennessee Valley. Growing up, my friends and I proudly called ourselves Valley Girls, embracing our unique regional identity. While I can’t […]

At a surprise press briefing on 29 May, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced that he would be demoting Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz, effective immediately. Diaz, who had been leading the Seattle Police Department (SPD) […]

Since its inception on 19 June 1865, Juneteenth has marked an end to a brutal system in which the US profited from the unpaid labor of nearly four million enslaved Africans, according to the 1860 […]

My name is Zackary Tutwiler, and this month marks my 12-year anniversary as a Real Change vendor. My journey with advocacy started 31 years ago, when I was a homeless teen out of YouthCare’s Orion […]

In the last weekend of June, hundreds of thousands of people will flock to Seattle to celebrate 50 years of continuous Pride celebrations. This year also marks 55 years since the Stonewall riots, the famed […]

On Victoria’s South Gippsland coast, in a public transport blackspot, are some electric buses called Sandy and Sunny. Ten-seaters, they have their names emblazoned on their sides – “Hi, I’m Sandy!” – solar panels on […]

The train that Dalice Kennedy catches after work in Adelaide’s CBD terminates at Seaford – about 14km from her home in Aldinga Beach. There is a single express bus that Dalice can catch to bridge […]

One of Denver, Colorado’s biggest draws to local residents and visitors is its easy access to outdoor recreation, charming mountain towns and natural beauty. But for anyone who uses wheelchairs or has mobility issues, some […]

You’ve seen them everywhere: school cafeterias, public libraries, office parties, clubs, the streets and even church. Drag performers have taken over the world. But behind their glittery outfits and colorful makeup, performers face numerous challenges […]

Currently, around 8,400 people in Germany are waiting for an organ. But last year, only 965 people donated one or more organs after their death, creating a fight against time – and, not infrequently, death. […]

It feels like everyone outside the off-licence in Olskroken stops to say hello to Lasse Andersson. They barely see him before he starts talking: “New Faktum issue! But Faktum and support the poor and vulnerable!” […]

Sophia works in one of the brothels in Stuttgart’s Leonhard district that the city council intends to shut down. She arrived here from Eastern Europe just a few weeks ago. She likes the city, but […]

What would happen if refugees were no longer treated as problems to be solved; as people who are simply “here now” and need to be sorted into categories of “useful” and “bothersome”? What would happen […]

Did you know that casual drinks with friends or having a “wine mom” moment to unwind could actually be nudging up your risk for breast cancer? It sounds like a buzzkill. But it is a […]

Sitting around a table at Miriam’s Kitchen, the founding members of the People for Fairness Coalition knew that the District of Colombia had a problem. They had firsthand experience with the city’s homelessness services — […]

The US state of Oregon’s extensive history of family-owned farms is changing. Corporations bought more farmland than any other buyer in recent years, according to a 2019 Portland State University study on changes in farmland […]

In November of last year, there were 3,429 people living alone without a permanent home in Finland. 1,018 of them were experiencing long-term homelessness. There were also 123 homeless families. These figures emerged from the […]

There is a heavy atmosphere inside the betting office in Steindamm. Nervous men stand at counters, sit at tables bent over betting slips or intently stare at screens hanging on the walls. Some of the […]

From trial and error to structured support Before the mentoring program’s inception, new vendors like Christian Tarte learned the ropes through trial and error. “It was a sink-or-swim situation,” Christian recalls, describing his challenging first […]

June is National Indigenous History Month, an appropriate time to celebrate the fact that more than 40 Megaphone vendors — nearly 40 per cent of our total number — identify as Indigenous. We would like […]

Fighting shame and social stigma, marching together against threats and violence… many countries around the world will be celebrating Pride during June, July and August. Pride is about acceptance, equality, celebrating the hard work of […]

What’s up with Alberta? The Canadian province seems to have it going on with its recovery and treatment model. Government doesn’t just want to build addiction treatment centres, it wants to build recovery communities — […]

David Deocera still remembers the shame he felt growing up in his home country, the Philippines. When Deocera, now 58, was a child, “bakla” was a Tagalog term hurled at queer Filipinos who didn’t fit […]

Halaoui “Bogo” Bogontozu, 42, is waiting in the hotel courtyard, a glass of wine in front of him and his guitar at his side. “Would you like some wine too?” he asks. The former Apropos […]

Hinz&Kunzt: The Senate of Hamburg finds that the police are responsible “for keeping the negative effects of homelessness as low as possible […] for all parties concerned.” How do you view this, as lawyers for […]

Apropos: What did growing up in Salzburg mean to you? Florian Niederseer: Until a few years ago, I felt very distant from my home. I came out when I was 13 and had some negative […]

Our new research shows that parents who express empathy toward their teenagers may give teens a head start in developing the skill themselves. In addition, adolescents who show empathy and support toward their friends are more likely […]

For more than 50 years, Asian American studies has been a recognised field at American colleges and universities. But outside of California, students who want to study it as a major or minor are usually […]

Why are so many young Hondurans heading north? Research by me and two colleagues, published in the peer-reviewed journal International Migration, delved into the factors that motivate young people – those ages 16 to 29 – to […]

For years, the beginning of spring marked a great sigh of relief in German local authorities’ social services and public order departments if nobody had frozen to death over the winter. Winter emergency aid programmes, […]

Last April was the warmest globally since records began. The preceding months were the warmest March and the warmest February on record. This trend has been ongoing for several years now, and the tabloids are […]

Cash or card? It’s a question we hear less and less these days, for a number of good reasons. Cashless payments are considered greener, as they cut down on transport needs and environmental costs. They […]

Argentina has an annual inflation rate of 276.2 per cent. The figure is too high for the human senses to grasp; inflation smells of sweat, urine and rotten fruit. It feels like soggy banknotes, hastily […]

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Judith Matarazzo entered a default ruling against Rapid Response Bio Clean in a wrongful death lawsuit regarding the 2019 death of Debby Ann Beaver, 57, a homeless Portlander. Portland attorney […]

The comics collected under the title “At Home” attracted different perspectives on working from home – where does professional work stop and everything else start? If I work hard, am I a good mother or […]

Apropos: Your opening line is, “There is only one way to begin this book. With disgust. With self-disgust.” When was the last time you felt disgusted with yourself? Solmaz Khorsand: To be honest, in the […]

Liceulice: Your latest book, The Cat at the End of the World, is completely different from your earlier works. How would you define its topic? Robert Perišić: When you think about writing about the past, […]

“No child can decide whether to be born in war or peace, because war has longer arms,” I say at the beginning of my latest novel, Das Lied davon (The Song of It), which explores […]

Monday On Monday mornings, I volunteer at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. My shift is from 9am to 1pm. My main job is going around the wards with another volunteer with a trolley full of books […]

Martha Wainwright has forged her musical career with urbane folk rock that revels in – and reveals – the unsaid and the uncomfortable. She has often traced the scars left from a tumultuous childhood in […]

My emotions are like zero to 100,” says Chloé Hayden. “When I experience sadness or disappointment, it’s as if I could never and will never experience any other emotion.” The sensation is so all-encompassing, the […]

Trần Anh Hùng’s The Taste of Things is a story of food, love and seasoning. Starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, it explores a couple’s relationship through the creation and consumption of delicious, painstakingly prepared […]

If you close your eyes for a moment and think of an exhibition, you might think of pictures or other objects displayed in a room. The roots of modern museums and exhibition centres in Europe […]

It’s become common to read that microplastics – little bits of plastic, smaller than a pencil eraser – are turning up everywhere and in everything, including the ocean, farmland, food and human bodies. Now a new […]

Some vendors have had tougher life paths than others. Mathieu’s has been particularly hard. It began with a difficult childhood, fraught with misfortune and going without. From our very first meeting, he expressed a desire […]

I have been a lover of books ever since I first learned to read. Growing up, my favorite places were school and public libraries. Today, my large collection of books reflects my need to have […]

Kiley Reid, author of 2019 sensation Such a Fun Age, is back with her new novel, Come and Get It, recently selected for Good Morning America and Michigan Public (formerly Michigan Radio) book clubs. Reid […]

Which episode of Bluey made you cry? For Melanie Zanetti – the actor who voices the show’s matriarch, Chilli – it’s ‘Baby Race’, which uncovers Chilli’s insecurities about being a perfect mum. “Seeing this character […]

Black Lives Matter protests in US cities with Black women police chiefs experienced significantly lower levels of violence – from both police and protesters – than cities with police chiefs of other racial backgrounds and […]

A recent federal study on graduation rates for American colleges and universities shows that 40% of all students did not earn a degree or credential within eight years of leaving high school. The graduation rate is even […]

Deepfakes are becoming more sophisticated and increasingly hard to spot. Recent examples of deepfakes include nude images of Taylor Swift, an audio recording of President Joe Biden telling New Hampshire residents not to vote, and a video of Ukrainian […]

On the evening of 26 January, in a Starbucks in the centre of Ulm, Germany, a 44-year-old man from North Rhine-Westphalia took four people hostage while nine others were trapped in the café. The perpetrator […]

“I was told that the waitlist was 10 to 20 years for government housing,” says Tyler, who left his unsafe family home at age 21. Tyler is transgender and fled to escape violence and his mother’s […]

To visit Wolfgang Knauß’s workshop is to step into another world. You don’t weave around paint-encrusted easels here, nor are there turpentine fumes in the air. Instead, visitors are met with an atmosphere of concentration […]

Most parents, educators and policymakers agree that children should eat healthy foods. However, our peer-reviewed paper suggests that the strategy adults often use to achieve that can sometimes backfire. Fortunately, there is an easy fix. We, along with […]

I ask Ciprian which part of Romania he comes from. “From Valea Mănăstirii.” Valley of the monastery. “Monastery Valley – Klostertal!” I nod. “We have one of those in Austria, too!” Ciprian relaxes a little. […]

Mönschberg, Kapuzinerberg, Hellbrunner Berg, Rainberg, Nonnberg, Festungsberg. Citizens of Salzburg, Austria love the city’s peaks. But for 12 people, they are not a retreat, but a workplace. Those people are the Salzburg mountain cleaners. The […]

This is one of those rare stories where everyone wins. This does not happen often – especially in Hungary’s social support system. The idea of the Shelter Foundation Psychology Project was born in December 2021. […]

Helping others is second nature to Arthur Infante. He can’t imagine sitting by and doing nothing while others struggle. For years, he would take his children out to help people experiencing homelessness. “I never saw […]

A stained-glass window, donated in 1877 to a church in Rhode Island, US, shows Jesus as a dark-skinned man. Most Western depictions portrayed him as a European, with light skin and sometimes even with blue eyes. A […]

“Fake news” legislation that governments around the world have written in recent years to combat mis- and disinformation does little to protect journalistic freedom. Rather, it can create a greater risk of harm. That’s the main […]

Students in rural America still lack access to high-speed internet at home despite governmental efforts during the pandemic to fill the void. This lack of access negatively affects their academic achievement and overall wellbeing. The […]

Middle-aged Americans are lonelier than their European counterparts. That’s the key finding of my team’s recent study, published in American Psychologist. Our study identified a trend that has been evolving for multiple generations and affects both […]

Most of the estimated 300,000 babies born every year with sickle cell disease, an inherited red blood cell disorder, live in sub-Saharan African nations where there are few resources to treat them. As an assistant professor of biomedical […]

Pauli Soisalo was Finnish President Urho Kekkonen’s cardiologist. He hoped that his son Marti would succeed him, but instead, Marti became a businessman, selling paper made from the trees of Finnish forests to Rio de […]

Pierre and Nicole occupy one of the nine cubicles reserved for couples at the Hochelaga shelter (one of the three shelters managed by CAP St-Barnabé in Montreal), which also houses pets. This is a rarity: […]

Laura Gutowski resides just down the street from the Grants Pass home that she lived in for 25 years. Her son used to play baseball in Morrison Centennial Park, where she now lives in a […]

Danut, 50 I first came to Finland around six years ago. My wife also visits sometimes. At home in Romania, we have five boys and one girl. The daughter is mute – God wanted it […]

The conspirators work over there, in the office building. They are the ones who control the town hall, the police, and any passer-by could be one of them. They are nefarious and make people disappear, […]

Pigeons are not natural city-dwellers. Humans pulled rock pigeons from their natural habitat and trained them as carrier pigeons. Urban pigeons are abandoned carrier pigeons, racing pigeons or weddings pigeons that did not find their […]

“The wolf strikes again: attacks in Val Sarentino and Val Pusteria.” “Nearly 500 attacks against humans.” “The trail of blood left by the wolf grows longer.” These local media headlines, accompanied by menacing images of […]

From 1950 to 2000 alone, over 80 per cent of the largest armed conflicts worldwide took place in biodiversity hotspots. These are regions with exceptionally high numbers of animal and plant species. Wars destroy not […]

Climate change, and specifically rising temperatures, may cause food prices to increase by 3.2 per cent per year, according to a new study by researchers in Germany. As climate change continues to worsen, this price inflation will […]

Her revolution began with a tear. 6,000 metres above sea level, on top of the Huayna Potosí, surrounded by snow and the zigzag of mountain tops. She had climbed for hours. Now that she had […]

Disinformation caught many people off guard during the 2016 Brexit referendum and US presidential election. Since then, a mini industry has developed to analyse and counter it. Yet despite that, we have entered 2024 – a year of more […]

Hinz&Kunzt: From Entdeckung der Currywurst to Am Beispiel meines Bruders, to your new novel, All My Ghosts, Hamburg is always at the centre of your plots. As a native of Hamburg, you can’t let go […]

The cap set on how much UK energy suppliers can charge for domestic gas and electricity is set to fall by 15 per cent from 1 April 2024. Despite this, prices remain shockingly high. The average household energy […]

A few years ago, Fi Macrae showed up at emergency in the middle of the night. She was in the throes of a bad flare of endometriosis – a chronic and complex illness in which […]

At 16, I was at the local mission school in Yirrkala. I was born and raised here at Yirrkala community. When I was around 13 or 14, Ted Egan’s (the District Welfare Officer in the […]

As Russian soldiers invade Ukraine in the early morning of 24 February 2022, Alexander Goncharenko is in his car on his way to work as head of a private health centre in the Russian city […]

ONLINE EMBARGO UNTIL 14 MARCH 2024 Zendaya and Florence Pugh are still figuring it out. Their uncertainty is a mind-boggling concept to anyone who’s closely followed the young stars’ sky-rocketing careers over the past few […]

The City of Denver, Colorado, US has served nearly 40,000 new immigrants, often by providing shelter in hotels. New immigrant families were offered up to 42 days in a hotel, while single men and women […]

Apropos: You are one of the very, very few female sound specialists in Salzburg. Do you have any role models? Ariane Pellini: No, I never actually have role models – not even in other areas. […]

I heard about Liceulice by chance. When I came in, I had an introductory interview and undertook a short course. At the beginning, I thought it was going to be complicated – that’s how it […]

Many experts believe that we may soon face a mass extinction event, with a high proportion of Earth’s species dying out. Projections indicate the climate will continue to change for centuries to come. This is a significant threat to […]

Initially, everyone on the organising committee for the COP29 global climate summit was male. In response, the She Changes Climate campaign group stated that “climate change affects the whole world, not half of it”. A backlash followed and women […]

Menstrual health and sanitary towels have been taboo subjects for hundreds of years in China. However, things are starting to change as women begin to feel more comfortable talking about this subject in public. In recent months, […]

After 13 years with Canada’s British Colombia Coroners Service, Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe has retired, stepping down on 18 February after 30 years in public service. Lapointe began her career as a coroner in 1995 […]

On 14 February 2024, the 33rd annual Women’s Memorial March took place in the streets of the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two spirit people. What started […]

Luis Jaime Suárez Ahumada is a freelance photographer from Mexico with a keen interest in social and environmental justice. He volunteers at Megaphone and at the Canadian Conservation Photographers Collective. View his work at bit.ly/3UWGasC […]

From Harry Styles to Kurt Cobain, Billie Eilish to Pierre Trudeau and Mikhail Gorbachev, Nardwuar the Human Serviette has not only been scoring coveted interviews and sound bites for more than 30 years but displayed […]

Ion Rafira, 37, describes himself as a reserved person and he is nervous for his first interview, but also excited that someone is interested in his story. Apart from his social workers at Caritas, he […]

Monday First day back on the street at the pub Young & Jackson, my favourite pitch. Very desirable weather. Just got in on Friday from New Zealand. Went for a holiday over the Christmas break […]

Strassenkreuzer: What drew you to the topic of urination? Simone: It’s to do with empowerment, and the search for bodily freedom. You can have the feeling that you are trapped in a body the whole […]

It’s November, and the wind is harsh in Helsinki. Humid sea air ignores my down jacket and slips in close to my body. I am here to answer a question: How is it that homelessness […]

Dear younger Michael, High school will be good and bad for you. You’ll tend to hang out on your own at the library. You’ll feel quite isolated and inadequate, although your marks are good, and […]

Dear younger Donna, Slow down. Plan. Let’s get out of here, but let’s do it smartly. We’re running away from here, and that’s okay, but I want to help you first – to guide you into better, […]

Dear younger Andrew, If you thought electrocution on your birthday was a shock to the system, you ain’t seen nothing yet. You’ll lose your central vision, no longer able to read the top letter of […]

Dear younger Dan, Even though you’re the eldest sibling, you’re possibly not the wisest! While your brother and sister will study accounting at university, you’ll follow your passion for community development at Technical and Further […]

I graduated as a pastry chef, but I don’t work in the profession because I have a thyroid disease. Now I exclusively sell Liceulice magazine. Last summer, I saw my colleague Mira, who was selling […]

“Yesterday, two people said they’d like to buy an Augustin but didn’t have change, only a debit card, and asked if I could give change from a €100 note,” says Jan Pisar, an Augustin vendor […]

Led by UK-based charity Arts & Homelessness International, the Arts & Homelessness International Awards recognise global excellence in the sector of arts and homelessness and celebrate creativity in all its forms. Announced during a special […]

Apropos: How did the focal topic “togetherness” come about for the anniversary issue? Michaela Gründler: Throughout the year, we usually collect exciting terms that could incorporate interesting subtopics. This time, it was different: we knew […]

Georg Aigner was born in Stuhlfelden, Pinzgau, and had six siblings. Physical abuse was part of his life from the very beginning. He smoked his first cigarette when he was just 10 years old, and […]

The history of street papers: Street News In 1989, rock musician Hutchinson Persons was walking through New York’s Grand Central Station when he noticed the huge number of people experiencing homelessness – and decided to […]

Brown garage doors line the crossroads where two streets, Dringsheide and Schiffbeker, meet. The garage yard is surrounded by red-brick houses. On 26 November 2023, a man who had been experiencing homelessness was found dead […]

Yu Juan has been a vendor for more than seven years. Having sold The Big Issue Taiwan at Zhunan Railway Station, Hsinchu Eslite, Hsinchu Railway Station and National Tsing Hua University, she has experienced times […]

Chile has experienced one of the worst fire-related disasters in its history. A series of huge forest fires burned from 1 to 5 February, leaving at least 131 people dead – and this number will probably increase […]

Imagine: the year is 2029. You have been living at the same address for a decade. The postman, who knows you well, smiles as he walks to your door and hands you a bunch of […]

Our pets share our homes, lifestyles, and sometimes even our food and beds. For many pets, this close contact with humans can include exposure to second-hand smoke from cigarettes and other air pollutants. This may have serious […]

“This is where those Ukrainian orcs were manufactured,” wrote Russian soldiers on the wall of a school in Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv. In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, in a bar, others wrote, “This is […]

The thought-provoking theme of this year’s LGBT+ History Month is “Medicine – #UnderTheScope”. It aims to spotlight the intersectionality of LGBTQ+ identities within the realm of medicine, highlighting the historical contributions, challenges, and triumphs that […]

Navigating her electric wheelchair from Huashan 1914 Creative Park to the elevator at Zhongxiao Xinsheng Exit 2, through the crowded platform, she reaches the unobstructed first car. Transferring from the blue line to the red […]

Art Tatum A name synonymous with virtuosic, Art Tatum took jazz pianism by the reigns and flipped it upside down. He took inspiration not only from jazz’s primary melodic aspects, but those that weren’t and […]

The high seas have always been spaces virtually free of regulation. For years, the UN has been wrestling with an environment protection agreement that, finally, it is putting into practice. On 21 September 2023, the […]

Taking on the king of rock’n’roll within two years of Baz Luhrmann’s blockbuster Elvis Presley biopic is a tall order. But it’s hard to think of two directors more opposite than bombastic Baz and quietly […]

“Britain must prepare for war. America won’t save us this time,” declared the headline on a column in The Daily Telegraph on 19 January. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, asserted on 18 January that NATO is “braced for all-out war […]

In the Athens of 399BC, a public assembly voted to put one of the city’s outstanding citizens to death: Socrates, one of the fathers of western philosophy. They convicted Socrates on trumped-up political charges, yet he accepted […]

Rony Cohen doesn’t remember any particular moment when she first became aware of the number tattooed on her grandmother’s arm. It was just always there. Cohen says that she felt as if she had experienced […]

Wael Dahdouh, one of the most well-known faces of Palestinian journalism in the Gaza conflict, has this week started medical treatment in Qatar. Dahdouh was wounded in December in an Israeli drone strike that killed […]

The International Network of Street Papers (INSP) has spoken out about the need to “tackle public perceptions about what it’s like to be homeless and in poverty” as part of the solution to the UK’s […]

I wanted to emigrate – to spend my twilight years in my husband’s home country, which had become my second home over the course of our 30 years together. But when the time came, we […]

The world is in a state of flux. That we cannot deny. Political, economic, social, and technological change seems to be accelerating – or, to put it another way, change in the only constant. For […]

Knut Lothar Sundby, 60, spent the first seven years of his life in Grønland, Oslo, Norway. On his birthday in 1970, his family moved to Stovner. He remembers that his mother forgot it was his […]

Since 2014, the police in England and Wales have had powers to warn someone when they know that their partner poses a real risk of danger under what is known as Clare’s Law (the Domestic Violence Disclosure […]

Rolling out the solutions to climate change (electric vehicles, solar power, heat pumps) will require confronting the enormous gulf in wealth and resources separating the richest and poorest people – both within countries and between […]

Headlines about the threats of artificial intelligence (AI) tend to be full of killer robots, or fears that when they are not on killing sprees, these same robots will be hoovering up human jobs. But a serious […]

Gay men are haunted (and, as evidenced by that statement, melodramatic). On first dates, we commonly ask the other, “When did you know?” We trade tales of our parents’ reactions to this dark secret (assuming they actually know) […]

“I reckon we will be around five people today. There are many who are not doing so well at the moment,” explains Jonah Fedorczuk, 31. He is the chairman of Queer World Rogaland and arranges […]

Hinz&Kunzt: What role does alcohol play in your lives? Golem: Alcohol has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My father was a “quarterly” drinker. Every time we had […]

Lobbyists from major polluting industries were out in force at the recent UN climate summit, COP28. Groups representing the livestock industry, which is responsible for around 32 per cent of global methane emissions, want to increase their use […]

It’s official: 2023 was Earth’s hottest year ever recorded, beating the previous record set in 2016 by a huge margin. Last year was also the first in which the world was close to 1.5°C (1.48°C) hotter […]

Heavy rain across southern Britain meant that a vast majority of rivers in England swelled at the beginning of 2024, prompting widespread flooding. The River Trent was among the most severely affected. Water levels at […]

Adopting a healthier diet will probably feature prominently in many of our new year’s resolutions, but it’s often challenging for people to live up to their intentions. But there are good reasons to persist in making deliberate […]

A group of fifth-grade (ages 10-11) students at National Presbyterian School in Northwest DC, US wrote and performed an original song about homelessness, inspired by a unique relationship between one of their teachers and a […]

One sunny August afternoon, Tamerson Jordan, 34, walks into the Traços office. Last year, he became a Cultural Spokesperson, which means a close relationship with the street paper headquarters – the location for so many […]

“I came to Brasília to stay, to build my dreams here,” says Thifany Isabella Branco with her firm but soft voice — a radio announcer’s diction. The city offered a new beginning for her as […]

Trott-war: What’s it like living in Stuttgart as a Jewish and queer person? Orion Martz-Sigala: I always think of this comparison: the story of the yellow-headed parrots from Mexico, a number of which were living […]

Axel Bertil Roland Schöneman’s birth was dramatic – with hindsight, ridiculous. 66 years ago, he came into the world as the youngest of eight siblings, an afterthought, and he was born healthy – or almost, […]

From 2015 to 2020, approximately 8,000 women in Latin America and the Caribbean died each year due to pregnancy, birth and postpartum complications. In 2020, the number of maternal deaths in the region increased by […]

“How beautiful!” Gabriela Băncuța exclaims when she walks onto the Ateneum Art Museum staircase, surrounded by pillars and columns. The old entrance hall of the Ateneum, balconies and pillars have a profound effect on Gabriela. […]

The world population has reached 8 billion people. This is a milestone to be celebrated: it represents longer and healthier lives, with more rights and choices than ever in humanity’s history. But for some groups, […]

On 20 November, the Raise the Wage Renton (RTWR) campaign announced the initiative to increase the minimum wage in Renton, Washington, US officially collected enough signatures to make it onto the February special election ballot. […]

Thursday 7 December was a typical rainy Seattle evening, courtesy of an atmospheric river and an early sunset. And, like most Seattleites, I was more than ready after a long day of work to go […]

Obstetric nurses and midwives – called professional birth assistants – play a vital role in maternal and neonatal health. They are the professionals responsible for monitoring pregnancy, birth and post-childbirth, as well as performing tests […]

In 2023, 4.3 million girls are at risk of suffering female genital mutilation, according to the latest UNFPA estimates. The prediction is that this number will reach 4.6 million by 2030, as conflicts, climate change, […]

The climate crisis poses substantial risks to health, food production, water supplies, ecosystems, energy security and infrastructures. While it affects the planet as a whole, climate change disproportionally impacts the populations that are the most […]

DRAUSSENSEITER: In your book, The Best Place to Live, you describe your exhausting but interesting search for a home. What sparked this search for somewhere to live? Was it the hole in the roof that […]

Ximen Asakusa Archway is located on the crowded Guohua Street in Tainan, right across from Zhengxing Street. “Because Xiaojuan Rice Noodles over there is under renovation, people don’t like coming here as much,” she says. […]

Liu Taizhao, who calls herself “Banqiao Grandma”, used to sell newspapers at Banqiao Station before being discovered by The Big Issue, which opened a new journey for her. She is naturally diligent. She goes to […]

Guo Yuanmao has been part of The Big Issue Taiwan’s vendor community for quite some time now. For him, The Big Issue is more than just a way to earn a living – it has […]

“The Big Issue Taiwan was launched on 1 April 1991. On 12 April, my father had a car accident and died. Not long after that, I lost my job at that time,” says Dai Jiali. […]

A meeting at Kelly High School, Chicago, US on 24 October regarding a nearby migrant camp drew differing views from three people: a neighborhood resident, a second-generation immigrant – and a one-time political detainee who […]

Gao Xiu-li wakes up at 5am every day, takes a bus to her pitch and sells orchids. She sells The Big Issue from around 10am until she calls it a day around 6pm. After a […]

INSP: Tell us about what you do. Georgia Tillery: I work with communities to reduce barriers to access arts and performance. A lot of my work is based within the community, so I work with […]

Over the last three years in Italy, 11 students – nine men and two women aged between 19 and 30 – have taken their own lives amid exams falsely claimed as passed and graduation parties […]

I have walked for miles and miles. I’ve learned on this journey that peace is something you have to offer yourself and love reveals itself in many forms – and there is enough to go […]

With mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety being on the rise during the holiday season, it is important to do as much as possible to mitigate stressors and set boundaries with those around us, […]

Andy’s magic silver cup By Ed Conn I grew up in a tree shrouded neighborhood in San Francisco, appropriately named Forest Hill. It was a fairly well-to-do enclave, many residents from the professional class of […]

Hinz&Kunzt: To look at the news, one can’t help but feel that we’re living in a completely divided society.  Is that true? Thomas Lux: I have to disagree. We have looked at and identified attitudes […]

Hinz&Kunzt: Can you remember your first night at the Hinz&Kunzt House? Klaus: Yes, I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep. Andrej: Before I came here, I’d been staying at different friends’ places, but that […]

Ever wondered what it’s like to mount a road train? I’m talking a BFT (Big Frickin’ Truck: 200 tonnes – that’s loaded weight, mind you – four trailers, 80 wheels on the ground). Heather Jones of […]

Taika Waititi never intended to make a sports movie. Then he watched a documentary by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison, Next Goal Wins (2014), about American Samoa’s national football team – known as one of the […]

When Stephanie Akrumah founded the Centre for Green Growth, a Ghanaian organisation that trains women in the country on how to adapt to climate change, she used her own money, convinced that she was doing […]

When ants travel between their nest and a food discovery, the social insects deposit chemical pheromones along the trail to communicate with other ants making the trip. Before long, the shortest route has the strongest […]

Countries must put people’s health at the centre of their plans to fight climate change and phase out fossil fuels to tackle air pollution and diseases being aggravated by rising temperatures, health specialists told the […]

Concern is growing about the effects of climate change on human health – from air pollution to disease outbreaks linked to extreme weather such as floods, prompting the COP28 climate summit in Dubai to hold […]

A photo of world leaders at COP on Friday 1 December has been dubbed “the family photo” by the world media. As the world’s leaders gathered for COP28 to address the pressing issue of climate […]

It’s the multi-billion dollar question, and the stakes for the world could not be higher: Will oil and gas interests at the COP28 climate talks silence calls for the phase-out or phase-down of increasingly profitable […]

From drug traffickers laundering money through dubious land purchases to miners illegally panning for gold, environmental crime is thriving in the Amazon, and the question of what to do about it is high on the […]

Representatives from nearly 200 nations are gathering for COP28, this year’s annual UN climate conference, which is being held in the oil-producing United Arab Emirates and led by the head of the country’s state oil […]

“L’Itinéraire is much more than a magazine.” Behind the slogan of our street magazine’s organization is an intervention team that accompanies our vendors and marginalized people in the area every day. In response to the […]

Modern slavery affects an estimated 120,000 people in the UK. Under international law, countries must identify and protect survivors, while prosecuting and punishing those who traffic and exploit them. Courts in England and Wales convicted 282 traffickers in 2022. […]

Lina is a sex worker. When she returned to her hometown, Stuttgart, in the summer of 2022, she was recruited by a brothel owner. “When I arrived, I was shocked: they were working here without […]

When I first started at The Big Issue, about six years ago, I couldn’t really read the magazine. I couldn’t read. I missed a lot of school. I was cheeky. I used to get myself in […]

Shane is a Big Issue vendor in Canberra. He grew up with his grandparents on a farm in country New South Wales. When he left school at 15, he went to work on his uncle’s […]

“I’m gay and that’s a good thing,” said then Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit to the world in 2001. Wowereit was the first senior German politician to ever come out publicly. A lot of discussion […]

When a huge cyclone slammed into East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) in November 1970, it caused water in the Ganges Delta to rise by 10 metres. Entire towns were submerged. At least 300,000 people died – it […]

Financial crises are periods characterised for some by devastating losses of income, work, a certain future and a stable family life. The effect on mental health can be catastrophic. But what does the evidence tell […]

Craig Baker looks out the window of art studio The Stewpot at a nearby American flag. If the flag is billowing, he’ll wait for a less windy time to go outside and spray his latest […]

Since 1995, Bolton’s Portfolio Creative Agency have provided branding services to some of the UK’s biggest brands, including Timberland. But for the past few years, CEO Darren Clare and his team have also focused their […]

When Hamburg’s Social Democrat (SPD) senator Melanie Schlotzhauer presented her plans for this year’s winter emergency programme to members of Hamburg’s parliament, she almost burst into song. “We are leading the way in Germany,” she […]

Each year, more people die from drug use than from knife crime and road traffic incidents combined, and more people under 65 die because of alcohol than many types of cancers. Last February, the British […]

The first time I drank alcohol, I was seven years old. My little sister was only four. It was New Year’s Eve, we were at home in Lidköping, and my dad poured a glass for […]

“I love these characters and that’s why I will keep writing them,” says Richard Osman. “But to be honest, the success somewhat baffles me. I wrote what I loved, what I would want to read. […]

Meet your new best friend: the robodog that can sit, stay, snuggle on the couch, dance to “London Bridge Is Falling Down”, and greet you when you get home. Unlike a fur-and-flesh pet, your mechanical […]

Big Life Liverpool works with people experiencing homelessness and marginalisation in Merseyside. Five anonymous participants discussed their experiences. Person A (aged 28) I have been homeless for over three years. You don’t choose to become […]

Big Issue North have joined forces with celebrated artist Stanley Chow and sock supremos Stand4Socks to design a series of charity socks to keep you warm from heart to toe this winter. The socks come […]

On 4 November, Suella Braverman, the UK Home Secretary, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “The British people are compassionate. We will always support those who are genuinely homeless. But we cannot allow our streets to […]

For the first time in four years, the king’s (or queen’s) speech has left out a promise to ban so-called “conversion therapy”. This widely discredited set of practices aims to “cure” LGBTQ+ people by changing or repressing […]

It’s 9am in December on Tiber Square, a community space at the centre of one of Liverpool’s most diverse postcodes. The temperature is -5°C. Braving the cold, a small crowd is forming, sharing jokes amid […]

Ten minutes away from the Southcenter mall, a humanitarian crisis is brewing. More than 350 asylum-seekers, most of whom have arrived in Washington in the past few months, are staying on the grounds of Riverton […]

Backarnas FF have new match jerseys for the season opener: pink and burgundy stripes with black shorts. The credit goes to Emma Watson, who not only participated in designing the shirt but also got the […]

A loving do-gooder who always leant a helping hand — that’s how Bob Redmond is remembered in light of his recent passing at the age of 57. Redmond was the first full-time managing editor of […]

On 31 July 2023, Hinz&Kunzt vendor Nickolas woke with a start as someone kicked him in the side. He lifted an arm to protect his head and tried to undo his sleeping bag with his […]

Hinz&Kunzt, Trott-War, drobs, Strassenkreuzer, Asphalt – there are around 25 street papers throughout Germany. They are sold by people who are on the margins of society, poor and sometimes homeless. One of the best-known is the Munich magazine Biss – and not […]

It is the last Thursday of June. Irene Jagoba, who lives in Ireland, is preparing for a trip the following day to see her children in the Philippines and celebrate her son’s 18th birthday. It […]

In Oruro, time is broken. You’ll notice that when you get there. On the bus, you can pass hours with the on-board film programme and scroll through Instagram even in the wasteland. But don’t be […]

The Plantation of Ulster was the structured colonisation of Ulster by British officials. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in Antrim and Down counties in 1606, while official plantation, overseen by King James I of […]

Paddy Maloney, 45, was born in Ballymun, Dublin, before moving to nearby Clondalkin at the age of five, where he grew up with his parents, two brothers and sister. “From as young as I can […]

Ireland’s Big Issue: Many mistakenly believe that hormones are an exclusively female issue. What is the reality? Mary Ryan: We all have a hormone control centre that controls all our muscles, organs and immune systems, […]

Murray and Soxy (Jamison GPO, Canberra) Soxy is a full-bred terrier. She’s a great dog. I’ve had her since she was about five. Now she’s 17. I got her from an old couple who were […]

My family can’t believe what’s happened to me. I worked as a nursing assistant for 20 years. In 2014, I worked in Norway because pay is better there. I made 25,000 Norwegian kroner in two […]

While the Catholic clergy has built an impressive and imposing religious heritage in Montreal and throughout the Canadian province of Quebec, churches have played and continue to play a crucial role in the creation and […]

“Every city needs a Marcel Lebrun,” says Al, 59. the self-appointed mayor of the 12 Neighbours community, as he shows street paper L’Itinéraire around the cluster of miniature homes for people experiencing homelessness in Canadian […]

For endless miles, bushfire-gnarled trees dot a wasted brown landscape: a haunting yet familiar image. In Foe, the latest film from director Garth Davis (Lion), a parched Australia subs in for the American Midwest of […]

The flower stem has its small root on the left side of her back. It climbs along her entire shoulder blade, throwing its burgundy petals to one side, and then climbs again along her neck […]

Journalism is not, and should not be seen as, a crime. This was one of the many powerful messages landing on the ears of hundreds of media experts, journalists and editors, policy makers, government officials, […]

South Sudan holds more negative records than almost any country in the world – it is the poorest, has no real education or healthcare system, few facilities or infrastructure and a population of over four […]

 Liceulice: Your book Epilogue to Fascism has been reissued this year. Why now? Viktor Ivančić: The book is over 20 years old, and since Croatian nationalism, just like Serbian nationalism, is as strong today as […]

Anyone wanting to speak with Hinz&Kunzt vendor Thomas, 56, currently has a dreary trek ahead of them. It leads past the allotments and railway tracks and over the A1 motorway where the traffic is backed […]

Nuha Cessay’s eyes sparkle as he lists the steps required for a centuries-old recipe for Sicilian caponata. The chef, 23, was born in Gambia and now lives in Modica. “To work in a top restaurant, […]

The persistent erosion of media freedom continues to present a pressing challenge in Southern Africa despite the joint commitment made through the Windhoek +30 Declaration to protect media freedom, freedom of expression and access to information, according […]

UK-based charity Arts & Homelessness International has launched its first ever international awards, which will recognise excellence in the sector of arts and homelessness and celebrate projects and individuals from across the world. The selection […]

I spend time at the association Živimo zajedno every day. We have a lot of workshops here – we dance, sing, recycle and stack bottles. I like playing sports the most; I have won six […]

In the summer of 2017, a couple of months after a general election that saw the Conservative party lose their majority, NHS England launched an implementation trial of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The pioneering drug significantly […]

There are many documented health and social benefits that come with pet ownership. The companionship of another species provides a particularly powerful tonic; reports show that animals commonly alleviate feelings of loneliness, isolation, and depression. […]

In conflicts around the world, evacuations have long been used to rescue people from serious harm. During the second world war, for instance, thousands of children across Europe were sent to rural areas or abroad […]

The emptying of supermarket shelves during the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated the chaos that disruption to the UK’s food supply can provoke. Could this type of disruption have a different cause in the future? And what might the […]

At 16, I was a dancer in [English seaside town] Blackpool and I thought, I’ve made it. I was being paid on a weekly basis. It was the first time I had my own apartment – […]

Homelessness remains a tragically under-recognised issue in our society, burdened by prejudice. Those deeply involved in this cause understand that reintegrating marginalised individuals into society requires enlightening and preparing the broader community. Who better to […]

Among the hundreds already dead in the latest hostilities between Israel and Hamas, very many are children – and despite the killing of children being invoked by both sides as evidence of their enemy’s brutality, the death toll will […]

Do you like scary movies, true crime podcasts or violent sports? Research has shown that a major part of the attraction is their appeal to morbid curiosity. Engaging with frightening media and the emotions it […]

Sheltering in a converted shipping container, Ismet Kaplan waits to hear if he’s eligible for one of hundreds of thousands of homes that President Tayyip Erdogan promised would replace those ruined by modern Turkey’s deadliest […]

The death of 39-year-old Frank Ospina, a Colombian man in immigration detention in the UK, shocked his family. Ospina was awaiting deportation, and his mental health appeared to deteriorate rapidly. He is thought to have taken […]

“If this is not surveillance, what is?” That was the question posed by one Indian journalist after police last week raided the news portal where he worked, seizing dozens of mobiles, laptops and hard disks, […]

Irish trade unionist Maureen Kearney, now 67, was gaslit, assaulted and raped for speaking the truth. Now, French film La Syndicaliste tells her story. PLEASE NOTE: this article contains mention of extreme sexual assault. In […]

Authoritarian leaders might be good at damaging democracy, but unless they are pure dictators, they often still need to worry about winning elections. In the last few years, Europe has seen the rise of a […]

A new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reveals the extent of poverty in Scotland. “Over one million people still live in poverty in Scotland, with nearly half of those (490,000) living in very deep […]

The Centre for Homelessness Impact and Dogs Trust have partnered to create a collection of non-stigmatising images of dog owners who are also experiencing homelessness to challenge negative stereotypes. Dog ownership amongst people experiencing homelessness has an array of […]

Trott-war: You experience a lot of resistance for your blockade protests. Have you chosen the wrong form of protest to advocate for greater climate protection? Moritz Riedacher: The road blockade as a form of protest […]

Big Issue North: What was the genesis for Jadoo? Ben Hart: I’ve done a lot of shows in the more conventional way magicians work, and this time, I really wanted to make a show that […]

This Safe Abortion Day (28 September), activists around the world celebrated the news that Mexico’s Supreme Court made a historic step forward on decriminalizing abortion at the federal level. Millions more people will now be […]

Content warning: The following story contains detail about sexual harassment and violence. One incident I had to go through in July occurred when I had just finished my appointment at a clinic in Leonhardsviertel [a […]

Wherever Hercule Poirot travels, death has always followed – or is it the other way round? Across a century’s worth of novels, adaptations and fastidiously plotted homicides, the ageless sleuth has remained an ebullient, eminently […]

When a flash flood descended on a Himalayan community in the Mustang district in Nepal, it shocked the residents, climate change experts, and disaster risk management. Anil Pokharel described it as “beyond our imagination.” He […]

Content warning: this article contains ableist language. Kevin Donnellon was born in Liverpool in 1961. His mother had taken thalidomide during her pregnancy, and he was born with phocomelia (deformation of the limbs) and was […]

When auteur film director Martin Scorsese premiered his latest film at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, it became just another in a long line of acclaimed works by the 80-year-old filmmaker, stretching from […]

The city of Phoenix set heat records in summer 2023, with high temperatures that topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) for 31 consecutive days and at least 54 days in total. In such conditions, providing basic services […]

Living in Vila Olavo Costa, in Juiz de Fora, an area stigmatised because of poverty and violence, Mykaella Nazario’s family tried to circumvent difficulties by enrolling her in social projects. So, as a child, she […]

Matthew Desmond has lived through or lived alongside poverty for much of his life. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and sociology professor has made it his latest mission to focus not only on the lives of […]

When police get suspected drug abusers treatment rather than arresting them, those people are less likely to abuse drugs or commit drug-related crimes in the future, new, limited research finds. This kind of police intervention can […]

“For about 20 years, I’ve been interested in architectural ecology,” says Iñaki Alonso, one of the pioneering architects behind the Entrepatios Las Carolinas project. A venture – and adventure – in cohousing, it was built […]

Sundus Azza scans the news before she heads home, checking for signs that her 30-minute commute could turn into a four-hour-long slog. Any incident could make travel difficult. Sometimes Azza waits for her father to […]

Strassenkreuzer: The sight of homeless people in general makes an impression. Many feel compassion, perhaps shame, or choose to ignore them. But some people also react with anger or hatred. Where does this come from? […]

Azerbaijan launched “anti-terrorist activities” in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday, saying it wanted to restore constitutional order and drive out what it said were Armenian troops, a move that could foreshadow a new war. Armenia and Azerbaijan […]

Names translated as months of the year, incorrect time frames and mixed-up pronouns – the everyday failings of AI-driven translation apps are causing havoc in the US asylum system, critics say. “We have countless examples […]

On 14 October, Australians will head to the polls to vote on the recognition of First Nations people in the Constitution. It’s not without precedent – the Sámi people in Norway have had their own […]

Aziz, a vendor of the German street paper Hinz&Kunzt, can’t take it any longer. Firstly, he lost his accommodation and now he is completely broke as he hasn’t received his job seekers allowance. As he […]

As the United States endures record temperatures, people working in tough conditions from farms to construction sites have little respite from the heat – and are often unable or afraid to take breaks despite the […]

C03-4.09: Anyone looking for Kai Marquardsen’s office on the grounds of Kiel University of Applied Sciences has to find the building and the room hidden behind this combination of letters, numbers and punctuation marks. Or […]

It has been over a decade since 32-year-old Rafiqa (not her real name) was sold to a villager after being lured by the promise that she would be employed in the handicrafts industry of Indian-administered […]

Toledo Streets: Homelessness is a major issue in many cities across the country, and Toledo, Ohio, is no exception to this problem. According to the Lucas County Homelessness Board, an estimated 1,600 individuals experience homelessness […]

Klara is 28 years old and lives in Gothenburg. She has used various types of psychedelics to keep her will to live. Klara wants to remain anonymous because she has not told her family about […]

A powerful earthquake that hit close to the medieval city of Marrakech in Morocco on Sept. 8, 2023, has killed thousands and injured many more. It has also put at risk buildings and monuments of major historic […]

“I have been waiting my whole life for this moment”. This is how Pia Covre, founder of the Committee for the Civil Rights of Prostitutes, opened proceedings on the eve of the first national congress […]

Lawmakers in Latin America are carving out new rights for the human brain in response to advances in neurotechnology that make scanning, analysing and selling mental data ever more possible. Last month, the Chilean Supreme […]

In 2012, Robert “Turbo” Turbin made the leap few athletes make: from college ball to the NFL. After he arrived from Utah State University with a contract to play for the Seahawks, fans could easily […]

In Hawaii, one developer is working with a new housing model that promises to better address homelessness — thanks to changes to zoning laws making it easier to build affordable housing. The model, called “kauhale,” […]

Two weeks before his 17th birthday, Stephen Woodhouse’s mum died of cancer. “We knew she was dying,” he says. “They gave her six months. She lasted five.” In the midst of mourning, he and his […]

It has been almost 12 years since I left my city. And I have never been able to return. Homs, the place I was born and grew up, has been destroyed and I, like many […]

You might be familiar with this peculiar kink in the space-time continuum: how staring, for a few short minutes, at a late-night Uber booking – which looks so close on the backlit map of a […]

A small recording booth on the outskirts of the Congolese capital Kinshasa has become a safe space for homeless teenagers to rap and sing about their life on the streets and dreams of a brighter […]

The empty building on Rue de la Loi street in Brussels is crowded and run-down, but the roughly 100 asylum seekers who are squatting there say they have nowhere else to go if police carry […]

Up until I was eight, my parents did nothing but argue and scream at each other. Luckily, I can’t remember if things ever went further than that. They separated after a while, and my younger […]

When someone applies for asylum in the UK today, they may be waiting months or even years for their application to be decided, thanks to the record-high backlog that the government is failing to tackle. The vast […]

Vancouver-based drag king SKIM channels monstrous masculinity when he takes to the stage. It’s a performance inspired by monsters, villains and aliens. “When I am being monstrous I’m really embracing that ‘otherness’ and exploring it,” […]

For me, it used to be that consuming was more important than eating: I needed it to fall asleep and wake up, to function. To keep me from going crazy, I hold on to the […]

‘Make it in Germany’ is the slogan that has been used by the German Federal Government for ten years now in an attempt to attract skilled workers from abroad. The homepage belonging to the campaign […]

Betsy* made the decision to leave everything she knew in the city where she was born: the places she went, the food she bought at her local shop, her friendships and even part of her […]

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in search of safety. A year and a half later, many of those Ukrainian refugees who reached the UK […]

Content warning: This article describes police harassment perpetrated toward me. I acknowledge that this article could reopen old wounds of some past acquaintances and could step on some toes: You know who you are. I […]

Jovana Andjela, a single mother from Belgrade, has done odd jobs as a cook, cleaner, even a tour guide, but she relied on state benefits to make ends meet – until last year, when Serbia’s […]

The first thing Nikki Smith noticed when she got off the train from Philadelphia to D.C. was that she didn’t see any stray animals. That made sense, she thought. It isn’t safe for animals to […]

When the Second World War ended in 1945, a Communist government was established in Yugoslavia, which acquired the territories of Istria, Rijeka, and Zadar from Italy. On Oct. 16, 1946, Egor Marov was born in […]

Homelessness is reaching record highs in the UK. The latest statistics on statutory homelessness show that in March 2023, 104,510 households – including over 131,000 children – were living in hotels, hostels, B&Bs and the like. But […]

What’s up with Chinatown? Why all the apparent racism? Graffiti in Chinatown is up by 455 per cent since 2019. The Chinese Memorial Plaza on Keefer and Columbia was defaced with graffiti, as well as […]

The coronavirus pandemic and rise in cost of living have pushed close to 70 million more people in developing Asia into extreme poverty as of last year, the Asian Development Bank said, eroding efforts to […]

The spectre of downtown decline is again haunting American cities. After many decades of reinvestment and repopulation, some American downtowns are now showing signs of hollowing out again. The COVID-19 pandemic certainly bears some of the […]

Mike Johnston is the newly-elected Denver mayor, who promised to end homelessness in Denver by the end of his first term. After he was sworn in last month, his first action as mayor was to […]

***THIS ARTICLE IS FOR PRINT ONLY*** Meet Bex Grass and Rainbow the border collie. Together they sell The Big Issue at St Martin’s Church, central Exeter. Their incredible and powerful story speaks of the support that dogs […]

Turn on the news during scorching summer heatwaves and wildfires and you’ll likely hear warnings that average global temperatures are rising towards a key limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, intended to avoid […]

A little more than three years have passed since our last interview in the stylish hotel lounge in Andräviertel. We see each other almost daily, when you, Costel, are standing in front of the Spar […]

Torrential monsoon rains have left people, especially women, in crisis as they are still grappling to recover from the last year’s floods in Pakistan. “We are yet to return to normal lives after devastation caused […]

First things first: The Vancouver Street Soccer League (VSSL) is not a league, and they don’t play on the street. What they do is transform “the beautiful game” — a nickname for football, or soccer, […]

“Why?!” howls a voice over sludgy, heavy-as hell riffs. “Why do people have to live outside?” This – a frank plea for America to ask itself why people are homeless in the richest country on […]

Growing up, Dominique DeLeon spent many hot summers in a built-up neighbourhood in the city of Birmingham, in central England, where she lived through deprivation and had little access to nature or green spaces to […]

As the world registered the hottest month  of all time in July, the southwestern US city of Phoenix  shattered its own 1974 heat-wave record, with temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43°C) for 31 straight days. Heat-sensitive photography in late […]

Trott-War: What exactly does Black Owned Business Stuttgart do? Black Owned Business specifically supports entrepreneurs who are Black or seen as Black. We also maintain a connection to the African continent. We have developed a […]

Those who know me well know that I am a very shy and quiet person. I imagine others can sense my lack of confidence in social situations. It would probably surprise none of them that […]

As torrential rains, cloudbursts, floods, and landslides continue to wreak colossal damage and claim lives in Himachal Pradesh, India’s Himalayan foothill provinces, the question everyone is asking is: why is this happening? Is faulty ecological […]

Days after the Taliban administration in Afghanistan announced in July that all women’s beauty salons must be closed within a month, videos on social media showed groups of women protesting on the streets in Kabul, as well […]

“Some of the people in the photographs are no longer alive,” Daniela Yvonne Baumann told the audience gathered at the opening of the Ukraine 2014/22 exhibition. This fact is both depressing and impactful in bringing […]

A market controlled by a handful of businesses. Businesses that fight with armies of lobbyists in an attempt to bypass restrictions, flood the world with their products and pollute the entire planet. And it is […]

This story starts fourteen years ago in Copenhagen. It was then that the capital of Denmark hosted the fifteenth United Nations world climate conference, COP15. Three key events marked the conference. First, it was the […]

As leaders of Amazon nations meet in Brazil for a summit on protecting the rainforest, descendants of African slaves who escaped into the forest centuries ago are seeking land rights in an echo of the […]

“We certainly didn’t invent the movement,” says group co-founder Magdalena Jo Umkehrer. There were already groups for BMX riders, mountain bikers, bike messengers and road cyclists in Salzburg before the Spicy Cycling Girls. But these […]

Rent control is frequently proposed as a solution to the housing crisis. Advocates might not always be precise about what they mean by the term, but the idea of regulating, capping or stabilising rents tends to attract popular […]

Kim lives in poverty and sells Hinz&Kunzt magazine, something she/he makes no secret of when she/he goes on dates. “It’s a part of me,” says Kim, who identifies as non-binary and likes to be addressed […]

In the space of 90 days, Jason Russell’s life changed dramatically. The firefighter and father of three had a workplace injury, followed by mental health challenges, which led to him becoming unhoused. For 18 years […]

Tatev Azizyan, a 28-year-old journalist from Nagorno-Karabakh, says she has explained to her child that they both have to switch to “energy save mode” to survive. “Some bread and slices of tomato and cucumber, that’s […]

After just five months of dating, Mark and his girlfriend Mina decided to take their relationship to the next level by holidaying at a lake cabin over the summer – on his smartphone. “There was […]

Giorgio’s story proves that you should never stop believing, although his life has been anything but simple. Giorgio was born in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, on 15 June 1958, into a humble family. […]

I recently saw a news report that stated over 70 million, or 25 per cent, of people in the US now live in what is referred to as a “news desert”, meaning they no longer […]

The light snowfall over the winter combined with a lack of rain in the spring created tinder dry conditions resulting in wildfires across Alberta. By the end of May there were 140 fires burning. Nearly […]

During our interview, Uncle Zhu mentions that many years ago, he was resting in a church with his friends when they happened to come across a presentation about The Big Issue. At that time, he […]

Record numbers of people are living in temporary accommodation in England, according to the UK government’s latest reported figures. Statistics on statutory homelessness show that in March 2023, 104,510 households – including over 131,000 children – were living […]

A candle is burning in the hallway. “That means that we have a deceased person in the house,” says Maria Mayer, one of the staff at St. Martinus Alb-Donau. There is a fresh bouquet of […]

Amid the luxury towers and expansive villas of Mumbai’s most exclusive postcode, a crumbling apartment block exemplifies the price some middle-class employees are willing to pay for a home in one of the world’s most […]

In the movie Oppenheimer the eponymous character played by Cillian Murphy says the proposed site for a secret atomic weapons lab in northern New Mexico has only a boys’ school and Indians performing burial rites. […]

You can talk about the urban green transport transition in two ways. The resigned way goes something like this: cars are the dominant mode of transport, and that fact just doesn’t seem like it’s going […]

Women will bear the brunt of extreme heat as more frequent heatwaves on a warming planet pose a growing threat to their work, earnings and lives, researchers have warned. The impacts of rising heat are […]

Their names are Emon, Buba, Mamudou, Ousmane, Mh Munna and Mohttedi, and they are a few of the newly qualified lifeguards who, since the start of July, have been overseeing various beaches along the Cilento […]

Street paper vendors across the world might come from many different circumstances, but they have always had common challenges to overcome. In the past, these focused on homelessness, poverty, social exclusion and inequality. But now, […]

A man falls through time and space and finds himself in Stuttgart. He’s been here before, in a time long past – but everything has changed. The air doesn’t smell as fresh as it used […]

Just off the coast of Kiel in northern Germany, scuba divers use hand trowels to dig up emerald green seagrass shoots complete with roots from a dense underwater meadow, delicately shaking off the sediment before […]

Liceulice: How was the mural under the steps of the Krokodil Cultural Centre created, and what experiences have you had because of it? Vladimir Arsenijevic: The mural was painted by two Russian artists, since many […]

“The problems transgender people face start from their homes as their parents, especially fathers and brothers, look them down upon and disrespect them,” says 20-year-old Pari Gul. Gul, a resident of Charsadda district in Khyber […]

Apropos: You are apprentices at Hotel Sacher, and you suggested to your management that the hotel work with Apropos. What made you think about working with a street paper? Esther Krautner: We were given the […]

Petting a water buffalo before tying a fodder bag around its neck, Mustafa Ahmed tends his father’s herd in Iraq’s southern province of Najaf where his family have raised animals for generations but lack of […]

bodo: An increase in the consumption of crack cocaine is being reported in many German cities. What is the situation in Dortmund? Jan Sosna: Since 2017 we have noticed an ever-increasing demand for crack cocaine. […]

In 2019, when I was homeless, I lost my ID. I retraced my steps to the stores where I knew I had taken it out when I fished for store cards and cash in my […]

“Goooaaalll!” As the ball whizzes past the goalie and hits the back of the net, there is a roar – I realise it’s coming from me. But I’m not alone: a loud cheer echoes throughout the Dandenong […]

Introduction Here is a series of portraits I drew from an old magazine that belonged to my father. At the time, this paper was printed to mark 10, 15, 30 and even 45 years of […]

Germany has had a legal directive on a gender quota for women since 2015, which applies to commercial enterprises and the public sector. Whether prompted by the enactment of the aforementioned law from 2015 or […]

Liceulice: What drove you to start a choir? Maja Curcic: The idea came spontaneously. By education, I am a music teacher and I had worked at a music school. As the years passed, while I […]

The video shows an empty house with even the door frames and windows torn out. Graffiti on the wall recalls that the building was once requisitioned by the Sham Legion, an Islamist faction from northern […]

The market in front of the train station was bustling with people, and performers moved all about the square. Lai Hanwei made his way through the crowd, found a familiar spot, and sequentially unloaded the […]

Heatwaves are breaking records around the world, with China enduring its highest ever temperature, heat advisories being issued across vast swathes of the United States, and a fierce European heatwave expected to worsen. The heatwave […]

“My legs are shaking; I’m not going in there again,” the young woman groans, plonking down onto a bench. Before we step through the curtains into the “dark restaurant” and are led into the darkness […]

When Raj heard British farmers were hiring seasonal workers from Nepal last year, he jumped at the chance to earn what he thought would be a sizeable income for his family. Having already worked in […]

Pelle has hardly sat down in Faktum’s Malmö office before he wants to play one of his nephew Dennis’ songs, ‘Hemlöshet’ (Homelessness). “That’s one of my favourites,” Pelle says. “He’s singing about the reality [of […]

Venezuelan migrant Mairelys Caldera has become obsessed with doughnuts since she fled economic turmoil at home to seek refuge in Colombia a year ago. Dreaming of independence and a way out of poverty, Caldera plans […]

“I have this core memory of ‘What will Taisto do when it grows up, since it’s not a girl cow?’. I asked the barn keeper. I was 7 years old, and I got to bottle […]

My story begins back in 1977, when my twin sister and I were born to our loving parents. My mother actually wanted to become a nun in her earlier years but later decided having children […]

They haul many kilos of recyclable materials on their backs but receive little in return. These Bolivian women who help clean up the environment from dawn to dusk are fighting for recognition of their work […]

The Supreme Court has generated quite a bit of earned media in the past few years. There was the passing of Justice Samuel Alito, leading Sen. Mitch McConnell to hamstring the court with eight justices […]

In a world of competing conflicts, Sudan ranks low when it comes to getting the outside help its population so badly needs. Three months into factional fighting that has upended life – shutting hospitals and […]

I’m going through a challenging time. An unanticipated, challenging time. Menopause. Or as I refer to it: “‘pausing”. Yes, I turned menopause into a verb, because let’s be honest, it is an evolving, doing thing. […]

The Israeli army’s recent attack on Jenin refugee camp resulted in 13 deaths (12 Palestinians, including four children, and one Israeli soldier killed by suspected friendly fire). An additional 143 Palestinians were injured, with 20 in critical condition, and up to 4,000 displaced. […]

If you’ve only watched one HBO series about three spoiled nitwits trying to inherit their father’s empire, you’re missing out. What Succession did for the New York corporate world, The Righteous Gemstones does for Southern […]

For hours a day, multiple times a week, Pauline Van Senus picks up trash and pulls weeds along sidewalks all around Seattle. As the Transit Fairy, Van Senus has become something of a guardian of […]

It’s a hell of an opening line: “The night I watch Athena Liu die, we’re celebrating her TV deal with Netflix.” The narrator is June Hayward, a struggling white writer who lives in the shadow […]

In 2021, I was sentenced to county jail for theft and possession of a controlled substance. After six months there, I was sent to Gateway Foundation in Lancaster, Texas. The six months I spent at […]

She’s a swimsuit model and a CEO. As both an airline pilot and a flight attendant, she can navigate an A380 and bring you your complimentary peanuts. In 1992, she even ran for President – […]

Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls is the memoir of Angela Sterritt, an award-winning journalist, writer and artist. Within its pages, Sterritt pulls from her journal entries written […]

I am very positive. If I’m not happy when I’m selling, no one will buy Faktum from me. There are good people, there are very good people, and there are bad people. Sometimes, someone will […]

On a June afternoon when temperatures climbed near 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), Alejandra Pena gently tipped a jug of water into her son’s mouth. Like other children in the migrant camp, a mile-long stretch […]

Vying for the presidential nomination, Ron DeSantis attacked his Republican rival Donald Trump last month with a weapon the former president put on the political battlefield – fake news. Images posted on Twitter by the […]

The scented stands of pine trees stretching along France’s southwestern Atlantic coastline were reduced to charred stumps and stacks of blackened timber by the massive fires that ravaged the tourist hotspots of the Landes forest last summer. […]

As a passionate football fan, this time of year – when there’s no major international tournament – can feel a bit barren. But that’s just when you focus on the professional game. With the Homeless […]

Big Issue North: Could you tell us about your role and what it involves? Louise Baddeley: I work at the University of Surrey, and I manage the disability and neurodiversity team. We’re a team of […]

Mustard Tree, located in the Ancoats area of Manchester, is known predominantly as a homelessness charity, but it does far more than provide emergency aid to people sleeping rough in the city. Among its many […]

Apropos: Can you explain the connection between the word “awaken” and your art? It fits with my work perfectly because I use my art to help people flourish in a shared creative space. When something […]

A recent Justice Department report concluded that “systemic” racial bias in the Minneapolis Police Department “made what happened to George Floyd possible.” During the three years since a white police officer brutally murdered Floyd, nationwide discussions of […]

When looking at your own history, who looks back? It could be someone just like you. A new exhibit at the Chachalu Cultural Museum in Grand Ronde called ‘My Father’s Father’s Sister’ explores that question […]

Weyes Blood’s songwriting is an attempt to understand the world in which she lives. This solemn contemplation perhaps wasn’t so clear in her earliest forays into music – under her real name Natalie Mering – […]

Viviana Mazur is a doctor at the Santojanni Hospital in Mataderos, a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. She has witnessed the advances in women’s rights in Argentina, where until 2020 abortion was only allowed on […]

At 16, an age when most kids are engrossed in high school life, Michael Calhoun was starting a 30-year prison sentence. “They put me in with grown men even though I was a kid. Prison […]

The day Alan Braid opened his abortion clinic for business in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last August, he looked out at a waiting room full of patients fresh off trips from Texas, some with suitcases in […]

You know how it goes. When you don’t need something, you’ll see it everywhere, but as soon as you need it, you can’t find it for love nor money. Something similar can be said of […]

Two hundred people gathered in a club in a basement in China’s financial capital, many dressed in red and black latex with corsets and fishnet stockings, to cheer competitors who sashayed and danced down a […]

“I moved to Isla Mujeres in 1999,” says Alison Sawyer, now 70 and originally from Canada. “At the time, I was a fulltime potter and had no experience with animal rescue, but the island was […]

It’s not easy being gay in Paraguay, let alone coming out as trans or daring to wear drag in one of the most conservative corners of the Western hemisphere. Paraguay – paradise to the thousands […]

It’s Ramadan and the spring light lingers in the long evenings. When the fathers meet at the Svarte Mosse nature area in Biskopsgården, it is ten hours since they last ate or drank. Despite their […]

Hinz&Kunzt: Mr Neckel, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), at least 15,000 deaths were reported as a result of Europe’s heatwave last summer. Hot air tends to accumulate particularly in densely built-up areas and […]

Huang Da-ge [“Da-ge” means “big brother” in Mandarin] can often be seen on the campus of National Sun Yat-sen University – sometimes on the ramp of the College of Liberal Arts and sometimes near the […]

Iso Numero: The aim of the Sanna Marin government 2019–2023 was to eradicate homelessness by 2027. Is this a realistic goal? Juha Kaakinen: Yes, it is. We know the ways to make it possible. Homelessness […]

While leaving one’s country and becoming a refugee is a last resort, it is a decision that many, like Steve Kitsa, have had to make. As conflict becomes increasingly protracted in many African countries, many […]

Marr Dorvault Elder Marr Dorvault (traditional name Nii Gaa’mkx, from Ans’paux, Gitxsan territory) was encouraged by her parents when she was young to work in the local community in schools, hospitals and homes. She left […]

Millions of European gig workers could be recognised as employees with rights to pensions, paid leave and workplace accident insurance under draft labour rules approved by EU member states. The proposals aim to stamp out what EU […]

For more than ten years, Linda Rennings – known as “Kölsche Linda” – has supported homeless women in Cologne with her association H.I.K. (Heimatlos in Köln – Homeless in Cologne) and, having previously been affected […]

Margrit Resch is passionate about hairdressing and has been ever since she began her apprenticeship 47 years ago. Now retired, Margrit still enjoys using the tools of her trade a few hours a week, working […]

The Homeless World Cup returns in July for the first time in four years and 20 years since the first tournament took place. That it will take place in California is apt: the state has […]

I grew up on stolen land.  But as a Black woman in the Bay Area, primarily in the East Bay and partially in the Peninsula, I never fully understood that the land was even stolen, […]

Two dozen nations do not allow children to automatically inherit their mother’s nationality, leaving many facing social and economic discrimination or even rendering them stateless – not recognised as citizens by any country. In the […]

From his photo on the wall, the 20th century Argentinian nationalist writer and historian Raúl Scalabrini Ortíz seems to listen in closely on our conversation, which revolves around a sense of justice, economic and political […]

Runaway prices on electricity, food and interest rates have led to considerably higher costs for more and more households. The worst affected are those on low incomes and those who receive financial support; those who […]

Rana was 8 when, at the height of Indonesia’s devastating second COVID-19 wave, first her father, then her mother fell ill. They never recovered, dying within hours of each other in June 2021. Two years […]

When Carlos Carolina thinks of what he wants for his children, the message is simple: do good. Carlos has done a lot of good in his life, from helping people experience homelessness for over a […]

Memet Kamber, a vendor of the North Macedonian street paper Lice v Lice, at the age of 20, died at the Clinic for Anesthesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (KARIL) in Skopje last month. It was […]

The stigma of mental illness is real and mainstream media encourages it. Mental health is a complex issue, one which stops people from getting the help they deserve. Often times, stigma is perpetrated by the […]

“Hello, come in!” beams Danni, as she waves us into her leafy front yard in inner-city Melbourne. Her sweet-faced moodle Ruby weaves between our legs, angling for a pat. Among the pot plants and cacti […]

I started selling Faktum ten years ago but took a break for a year when I worked as a construction worker in England. I come from Tgjiu, a region in southwest Romania, and I still […]

HERMANN: After some time without a job, I had to live from hand to mouth I was unemployed once again. In a way, it was also nice to simply not have to do anything. And […]

The writer Andrea Hoschek is sitting opposite me exactly where the light is creeping into the otherwise gloomy Paracelsus book shop on Salzburg’s Steingasse. She is telling me about her life. Readers with their finger […]

The world awoke one morning in late March 2023 to the news that at least 38 Central and South American migrants had died in a fire in a migrant detention centre in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. A widely circulated […]

You don’t know where you’re generally going to be from one day to the next, or where your next meal is coming from, if you manage to eat each day. We have to jump through […]

Governments are meeting in Paris this week to negotiate a global treaty on plastic pollution, as alarm grows over the environmental damage caused by surging amounts of waste. Producing plastics causes major planet-warming greenhouse gas […]

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Alessia Redwine aspires to become a successful art curator and artist. As she wraps up her junior year at the University of Colorado Boulder, her main focus lies within […]

On this particular afternoon in early April, Radoslaw has one wish above all: a quiet place to sleep. The 40-year-old works for a horticultural company through a temporary employment agency. He gets up early in […]

The grey skies were a welcome sight for drought-hit farmers in France’s Nouvelle Aquitaine region. But rare rains earlier this month offered only brief respite for agricultural producers, whose weather woes are now being compounded […]

Britain’s proposed illegal migration law will lead to more people missing vital medical treatment for fear of detention, large bills and deportation, charities and health workers say. The Illegal Migration Bill, currently making its way […]

“It’s all a bit much just now,” Ramona tells me, speaking in good German as she takes a seat in the office of the Kupfermuckn street paper and absent-mindedly stirs her tea. These days she […]

Is homelessness a rehabilitation problem? I don’t think so. Homelessness is not an image problem, as previously discussed. Neither is homelessness a matter of rehabilitation. Homelessness means you don’t have a “home.” What is a […]

Alan Menken is the man who soundtracked your childhood. Whether you know his name or not, his songs are likely part of your world. The EGOT-winning composer is an illustrious man behind the curtain, responsible […]

You might recognise Adil Leite from years refereeing at the Homeless World Cup. He made his refereeing debut at the Homeless World Cup in Glasgow 2016 and has been centre stage at all the subsequent […]

Ghith arrived in Poland in November 2021, seeking asylum from Syria where he had been jailed for refusing to do military service that would have likely sent him to the front lines of a bitter […]

On April 5, City of Vancouver staff, supported by a heavy Vancouver police presence, began dismantling tents and evicting people from Hastings Street in the Downtown Eastside. The move came following eight months of tensions […]

Joshua Haider gave up his Pakistani citizenship in 2019 to become a Ukrainian national and settle in the country where he had studied medicine. He was looking forward to his wife and daughter joining him. […]

Kabinet Camara says he fled in fear from the west African state of Guinea six years ago after receiving threats because of his work at an organisation fighting child exploitation. “The government started opposing me […]

Some astrology fans claim that to know how the year will go you just need to analyse how the first day of the year went. If we go by that premise, things don’t look great […]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year sparked the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two, but also a wave of solidarity as thousands opened their homes to Ukrainians and EU states gave them […]

On screen and off screen, Melanie Lynskey is a great survivor. Almost 30 years since her astonishing breakout debut performance as a true-life teenage killer opposite Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures, Lynskey is in the middle […]

Nestled in a patchwork of fields in remote rural Denmark and hidden from view behind a row of trees lies Kærshovedgård, a former prison now housing hundreds of asylum seekers who have had their residence […]

Alex had been sleeping rough in Melbourne on and off for 10 years. It didn’t feel like there was any way out. “I’d actually gotten to the point of just going, this is my life […]

I was as young as seven years old when I first dared to talk about my dream of becoming a journalist. I had a clichéd dream: I wanted to change the world. But as a […]

Makia never thought moving in with her mother was going to work. Makia, who’s using a pseudonym to protect her safety, entered foster care when she was 2 years old. She lived in at least […]

When Lisa was first invited to come along to a football practice with Street Soccer USA, she nearly didn’t go. Why would she do something that had never worked out for her in the past? […]

Renuka Kumari is a 45-year-old Christian woman from the Dalit community in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. She faces numerous challenges every day and hopes for a day when her struggles will end and […]

People in Colombia who are uprooted within the country due to the impacts of climate change could receive legal recognition under a landmark climate migrant bill that this week cleared the first hurdle in Congress. […]

Dear Simon, It won’t be easy growing up in Whyalla – you’ll feel bored, but you’ll move soon. Living up with your sisters is difficult, but that’s life. You’ll get to see the start of […]

In the vast Chaco forests of northern Argentina, Noole rests from the fierce sun in the scented shade of dark carob trees on a small farm where her family grows watermelons and potatoes to eat […]

Ciara Clark, a Black doula, labored for more than nine hours at home before making a last-minute switch to go to the hospital to give birth. With her own Black doula and mother by her […]

“We just want to say to the whole of Europe, to the whole world… ROCK’N’ROLL NEVER DIES!” If you were placing bets on where the next great rock’n’roll band would come from, the Italian entry […]

Fernando Espósito: How did you get involved with Hecho en Buenos Aires? Bebu Saavedra: I worked for Ferrocarril Roca (Roca Railway) until I lost my job in 2003. Some friends who were coming to Hecho […]

There’s something shifting at Megaphone — in a good way. We’re proud to introduce Megaphone magazine’s new peer newsroom: The Shift. It’s an awesome group of more than a dozen vendors and storytellers who gather […]

Interviewing Jessie Ware is daunting. It’s not that the English pop-soul star is difficult – quite the opposite. She is a skilled interviewer and celebrity interlocutor herself, as the co-host of the hit gastronomic podcast […]

I was born in a village in southwest Serbia, near Kopaonik mountain. I finished special high school, which was hard, but the teachers loved me. My sister and I had a wonderful childhood. When our […]

Although I am never nervous before interview appointments, I have an uneasy feeling when I meet with Caro and Mareike in a café on a rainy winter’s morning. This is because we are meeting to […]

Seeking accountability in the brutal police beating death of her son, the mother of Tyre Nichols has filed a US$55 million federal lawsuit against the individual officers, the Memphis Police Department and the city of Memphis, Tennessee. […]

Thousands of migrants in Mexico have been clambering onto dangerous freight trains rumbling northward in a scramble to reach the US border by the time the United States ends a tough migration policy. In recent […]

*The views of Kupfermuckn vendors are not necessarily representative of those of INSP Up for all sorts of fun My name is Harald. I am 37 years old, and I was born in Linz. I […]

Chris Alefantis holds up a magazine to the screen on our Zoom call. “This is Shedia.” He then holds up a clock. “This is Shedia too.” “A magazine, no matter whether it is Shedia, or […]

I once commissioned aerial photography over the North Sea, convinced it would illuminate the thriving marine and offshore wind industry off the eastern coast of our patch. Years later I tortured one of our journalists […]

Software engineer Dan Shuhler spent 15 years frustrated with patchy internet service while living in apartments in Arlington, Virginia – and having no recourse. Each of those complexes contracted with just a single internet provider, […]

Poundbury is King Charles’s pet project. Located on Duchy of Cornwall land just west of Dorchester in Dorset, the monarch has spent more than three decades carving out his vision of what Britain should look […]

I remember first seeing the Big Issue North in 1993 because one of its earliest articles was on Hulme in Manchester – where I was working in Big Life’s first community centre. I can’t remember […]

Fedél Nélkül: You are a splash of vivid colour on the street and, what’s more, you’re quite a unique phenomenon among the vendors! When people buy the paper from you, they also get a show […]

Hi there! This is your 65-year-old self talking to you. If you don’t want problems later on in your life, please listen to what I have to say. Firstly, on Saturday you’re going to wind […]

Editor’s note: The asylum seekers in this article crossed the border from the U.S. into Canada through Roxham Road before it was closed on March 25, 2023. Roxham Road was an irregular entry point where […]

Meals or meds? It is a painful choice that 26-year-old Rayan often faces as a Lebanese trans man who struggles to afford food on top of his hormone therapy. The drugs usually win. “My medicine […]

We are proud of the work we are doing at the International Network of Street Papers (INSP). Our journalism and storytelling play a vital role in helping shape the political and cultural landscape in local […]

André Rostant, Soho, London What will you be doing on the day of the coronation? For the spectacle of it, I may well go have a look-see at the procession, even though I am not […]

In a departure from the past, where journalists in Kenya have freely covered anti-government protests unharmed, a series of events that unfolded in March 2023 have heightened fears of the re-emergence of brutal physical attacks […]

“We could not believe that someone could just give us money! The kinds of amounts that our grandparents or grandfathers could not even dream of or ask for. Our relatives told us that it was […]

When it comes to predicting the future of green jobs globally, the numbers look impressive. Tens of millions could be created this decade in clean energy and nature protection alone, as fossil fuel industries shrink […]

The independent media landscape makes for grim reading. From once-thought new media titans like Buzzfeed News, to Paper Magazine and its groundbreaking cultural coverage and, most depressing of all perhaps, the barrier busting gal-dem, which […]

Jens did a test on his first night. On an evening shortly before Christmas 2022, he took a backpack, sleeping bag and sleeping mat and took the subway to a yellow brick apartment block in […]

Lihua Wu’s journey to the United States started when she scrolled past the words “The Route,” one of several common hashtags on Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok, advising migrants on the irregular overland trek […]

There was a lot of excitement when registration for the 2023 BIPOC Bowl roller derby tournament was announced. The BIPOC Bowl, which takes place 15 and 16 April, is a Denver-based roller derby tournament exclusively […]

Trott-war: Why did you form this club? Nadine: We see the violence on the street and also how people are being left alone with their problems. There’s a great need for help out there and […]

I’ve been a vendor with the street paper Fedél Nélkül [which means “without a roof”] for quite a long time. I first heard about the paper’s existence from a long-term vendor, Béla Rácz, who told […]

Marginalised groups in Britain including ethnic minorities and people experiencing homelessness risk losing their right to vote due to government plans that require people to show a photo ID before voting, campaigners and lawmakers said. […]

“This year will be my twelfth year selling the Big Issue Taiwan,” Chung-Hsing Liu tells me. Before then, 61-year-old Liu spent his time in and around Taichung train station. He would occasionally hitchhike to Yuanlin, […]

In the summer of 2021, Canada’s all-time temperature record was smashed by almost 5℃. Its new record of 49.6℃ is hotter than anything ever recorded in Spain, Turkey or indeed anywhere in Europe. The record […]

Samuel’s looking forward to seeing his girlfriend again soon. He’s been working and has earned some money. He tells me that he’s going to get something to eat – ‘because it’s nice to sit together […]

Is the claim from Western politicians and media who continue to say that Ukraine’s brutal proxy war stands behind whatever catastrophes, disasters or crises occur on the planet accurate? Scientific evidence confirms that, much earlier […]

On 20 February, Jesse got mail. Hate mail, to be specific. Slipped under the wipers of his RV, which he’d recently parked on a stretch of 16th Avenue SW outside South Seattle College, was a […]

Under dark skies misting rain, thousands of people from across Britain, including many families, gathered outside the parliament building in Westminster on Friday to try a new tactic to win faster action on climate change: not […]

Seven years ago, my husband and I found someone to live with in Höör. We still live there. It’s a small village and I like it there. I sell Faktum outside Coop; it’s a great […]

Michael Ruf is both an author and director. He spent days on end researching for the play ‘Climate Monologues’ and conducted interviews mainly throughout the south of Kenya. He spoke to people who were already […]

When Ronnie Harris first entered foster care at 12 years old, she was certain she would be adopted. But, in what felt like no time at all, foster care swallowed her teenage years. The system […]

Two decades ago Nurul Islam, 70, earned his living by fishing in the Buriganga river that flows southwest of the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka and was once its lifeline. Now, with hardly any fish to […]

bodo: The Verdi union [a German trade union group] estimates that there is a shortage of 20,000 skilled workers in North Rhine-Westphalia alone – this roughly corresponds to the entire population of towns like Fröndenberg […]

At the world’s northernmost year-round research station, scientists are racing to understand how the fastest-warming place on Earth is changing – and what those changes may mean for the planet’s future. But around the tiny […]

From now until summer 2024, the Museum of Pop Culture (or MoPOP) in Seattle will host ‘Hidden Worlds: The Films of LAIKA’, a retrospective exhibit that offers a deep-dive into the company’s history and a […]

When Oswaldo García saved up for his first computer last year, he saw a chance to swap his dead-end job working nights at a kiosk in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires for a better career. […]

On both sides of the narrow river valley, sheer cliffs rise to a height of several hundred or even a thousand meters. Behind them, snow-covered peaks reach for the sky. There are hardly any plants […]

Food is passed around a campfire, and a guitar strums as cool night air tumbles down mountain cliffs, relieving the jungle of its heat. A dozen or so young Myanmar activists – some having just […]

Being a Megaphone vendor helps me to succeed socially. It has given me safety, belongings and good memories. The weather in Vancouver sometimes makes selling very difficult. When I sell magazines and calendars, I need […]

“I don’t mean to be unkind, but these days I often get bored with it,” she says, smiling. “I can’t change my history, and when I tell my story what I get most from people […]

Naca fled Bosnia and Herzegovina with her mother during the 1990s because of the war. Arriving in Serbia and living in different refugee centres was so very hard, and particularly during a time that was […]

A Kyrgyz environmental activist has found a way to combat toxic fumes choking her city by literally turning trash into treasure, sewing clothes out of waste that would otherwise be burnt in a landfill or […]

It’s around 9am on a Sunday morning and Aida Peery, 66, is bundled in a gray hoodie and knee-length purple coat, folding stool over one arm, pushing a stroller filled with canvas tote bags and […]

European lawmakers gave a boost last month to efforts to make ecocide – large-scale environmental destruction – a crime that could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) alongside offences such as war crimes and genocide. […]

Eriksen is [a] Norwegian [name]; it’s my mum’s surname, and I’ve added it to my name. I have autism and Asperger’s, and in the beginning went to a regular school in Lerum municipality where I […]

Recruiting fellow yoga teachers in Britain to join a union is not easy for Hayley Johns, but for help, she has turned to an unlikely source: sex workers. Despite facing criminalisation for working under the same […]

“I had my shop in Afghanistan but came here after the Taliban’s warning against stitching women’s clothes. Now, I am working on daily wages in a shop owned by a local tailor master,” said Noor […]

The ‘Schlafen statt strafen’ [Sleep, not punishment] campaign held a demonstration in the centre of Dortmund between 28 January and 5 February. Their protest camp attracted lots of media attention, and the authorities felt compelled […]

I’ve been selling the paper officially for nearly ten years; before that, I did it illegally in Moscow Square. An older vendor suggested that I should go to Kürt street and try to apply for […]

The people of Dornbirn, in Austria, are proud of their natural jewel, the Rappenloch Gorge. There are adventurous paths through the gorge that pass by extraordinary rock formations. Amply provided with safe and signposted hiking […]

“People want the abortion laws here liberalised. Society has changed; even the politicians can see it,” Kinga Jelinska, a Polish reproductive rights activist, says. “In four or five years, I believe, the abortion laws here […]

Lynn, I know you’re only 16 and very fragile but you need to know a few things… Be brave and ask everyone to stop calling you Lynnette. You don’t like it, so stop it now […]

In January 2021, days after the 6 January insurrection, I moved to DC to study film. Driving into the city felt like a scene from a movie. DC was on a double lockdown, and there […]

By the time Lee “Taqwaa” Bonner got out of prison in California, he had spent 30 years behind bars and was unsure where to go. He stayed at a halfway house for three months, but […]

Abortion providers are rushing to open mobile clinics in vans and on ships to ensure women can still access the procedure following near-total bans in almost a third of US states. Most American women now […]

Few things throughout history have played as important a role in the economic empowerment of women as the sewing machine. In the context of domestic and gender-based violence, economic empowerment is often a factor in […]

When US tech firm OpenAI rolled out Whisper, a speech recognition tool offering audio transcription and translation into English for dozens of languages including Māori, it rang alarm bells for many Indigenous New Zealanders. Whisper, […]

In February, the streets of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver were packed with people, as thousands gathered for the 32nd-annual Women’s Memorial March. Drumming, singing and sage filled the air as a strong yet solemn […]

Reaching for the telephone – what is straightforward for some has others breaking out in a sweat. But today Frau S manages it. She has prepared herself well for the interview with the Austrian employment […]

Collecting everything is very important. Ashes, scraps and metals. Fredric Raneblom moves the long scraper back and forth in the incinerator with composed, measured movements from one edge to the other. He has been working […]

It’s 11:30 AM – lunch break. The halls of the Inpuncto sheltered workshop at Lebenshilfe Dresden in Briesnitz are filling with laughing and chatting people. At first glance, much of what’s going on here reminds […]

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of so many affected people. I am 43 years old. I started living on the streets when I […]

In a molecular laboratory at the University of Melbourne, Professor Andrew Pask is attempting to do something no other scientist in the world has ever done: bring an extinct species back from the dead. Pask is […]

When Franziska Bertram and a team of forensic specialists began examining the mental health of homeless people, it seemed at first that they were significantly better off than the general population: Researchers at the University […]

We’ve all been tricked. The trap: “What is beautiful is also good”. What sounds like simple, childish naivety is subconsciously shared by all of us. If someone is beautiful, we tend to attribute positive qualities […]

I first came into the picture with Fedél Nélkül in 2004, 19 years ago. How? I think I was just wandering around the street and then an old homeless person came to me on the […]

Angel Olsen is surprised that people say they hear a sense of calm across Big Time, her sixth album and one of 2022’s most arresting releases. “When I wrote [these songs], I was just exhausted,” […]

I was born in Resnik, a suburb of Belgrade. My father had a drinking problem, so the majority of the upbringing of my brother and me fell on our mother. Aunt and uncle helped a […]

“Restoring furniture is kind of like restoring yourself,” Jay Blades – the face of the BBC’s wholesome and beloved The Repair Shop – tells The Big Issue. The other person with us wholeheartedly agrees. After all, Steve Wyatt is the living embodiment of […]

Jose Roberto Segovia Benitez knew at a young age he wanted to enlist in the United States Marine Corps and was told, like many foreign-born recruits, that his service would put him on a fast […]

Lake Näsijärvi steadily flowed toward the city centre as I made my way to the Mältinranta winter swimming spot, perched on the upper reaches of the Tammerkoski rapids near Tampere. The dressing room thermometer read […]

Bookseller Zulema Diaz fled her native Peru after being kidnapped, beaten and robbed, hoping to find safety in the United States. Instead, she said she experienced homelessness and sexual harassment as she worked off-the-books on […]

Asphalt: You usually work behind the camera. What gave you the courage to go in front of it – and on top of that naked? Robert Lindemann: It was always my dream to be in […]

There are 151 wind turbines and more than 130 kilometres of connection routes and power lines on the Fosen peninsula, 530 kilometres north of Oslo. Norwegian judges say that they should not be there, and the […]

A chilly dawn paints the sky magenta and purple as Japanese fisherman Haruo Ono unloads his catch of flounder, crab and sea bass from his boat at the small port of Shinchimachi. A third-generation fisherman, […]

After weeks of negotiations, Marcus Lampros rejected the city’s offer. The city of Portland wanted to rent the local steel company owner’s property for a new mass homeless camp, but Lampros was concerned about the […]

Most sex work establishments display posters stating that services can only be provided with the use of condoms. This is also the case in the Dreifarbenhaus, Stuttgart’s oldest brothel, established in 1957. However, the five-story […]

When Georgina* moved from her family home in Melbourne to Sydney, aged 19, she saw homelessness on the streets for the first time. There were people sleeping rough at Central Station. “It was an eye-opener to […]

You could say Terry Haub has travelled from Howe Street to hell. But he made it back. Twenty-five years ago, the former entrepreneur and stock trader resided in Kits and was living the good life […]

The UK government has introduced its latest effort to deter small boat migration, by vowing to remove all those who arrive in the UK illegally by any route. The illegal migration bill, if enacted, will apply […]

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), being or identifying as a woman has a significant impact on health, as a result of both biological and gender-related differences. In many societies the health of women […]

In a small village circled by velvety white snow-topped mountains in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province, Aziza Rahimi mourns the baby son she lost last year after a harrowing birth with no medical care. “It was too […]

When D.A.* first heard about the fatal attack on a gay bar in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, last October, their first reaction was a mix of grief, shock and anger. But then, soon after, the […]

INSP:  did you become interested in practicing photography, and when did you want to pursue it further as work and as an art form? Giles Clasen: I became interested in photography when I was in […]

“Around 30 years ago, it was clear that women had to be offered special support,” Ingrid Stoll says about the early days of “Femmetastisch” (“Femmetastic”), a drop-in centre for women in need in Stuttgart. The […]

It has been three weeks since Tugce Seren Gul’s aunt and grandmother were killed in Antakya when a devastating earthquake struck Turkey’s southeast. And yet every night, she waits until 4.17am in the morning, the […]

The neighbourhood of Kallebäck sits on a high point between two busy roads, out of Gothenburg city centre but just a short bike ride away. The streets tell of a former industrial area with names […]

London is the other city where I would like to see myself selling a street paper. Why do I love this city? For its architecture, its history, its museums. I would like to immerse myself […]

Separated children who arrive alone in the UK are being placed in hotels by the Home Office – and many of them are then going missing. On January 24 2023, the immigration minister announced that 200 unaccompanied children were missing […]

Imbuing an AI chatbot with human characteristics doesn’t seem so ridiculous in a time when such technology is showing uncanny steps forward in its ability to learn and adapt, with some reports of their sentience […]

Unga KRIS (Youth Crisis) is arranging a party at the association’s premises in Majorna, Gothenburg. On the agenda is food, fun, music and magic tricks. There have been some bumps in the road: the association […]

Sabriye Karan’s late husband worked for the Turkish national rail company for 32 years and her daughter Nehir grew up riding trains. After powerful earthquakes struck Turkey and damaged her home, she and Nehir moved […]

At the start of October 2022, Ronald Kelm gets in touch with Hinz&Kunzt. The 61-year-old founded the Gesundheitsmobil (“Health Mobile”) and takes care of homeless people in a voluntary capacity, together with other medical professionals. […]

Tamila Melnichenko, 82, has one last wish: to be buried in Ukraine. A year ago, she was uprooted by the Russian invasion and now spends her days in a retirement home in Poland, longing for the life she […]

I saw a photo shared to Twitter of Sham, a young Syrian girl rescued from under the rubble in northwest Syria, sitting upright in her hospital bed. According to the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer humanitarian group […]

***THIS ARTICLE IS FOR PRINT USE ONLY*** Bernie Sanders believes the capitalist game is up. In his new and rather furious book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, he argues that until working-class people […]

It’s more than just knitting – this becomes clear immediately as one enters the room – this is also about togetherness. In the former kindergarten of the parish of Lehen, a group of women sit […]

How long did it take until you became “the” Matthias for the vendors? Our vendors find it relatively easy to adapt to change. Besides, Hans Steininger – or “the” Hans, in vendor-speak – was still […]

After other adolescent girls her age have gone to bed at around 10pm, Kudzai commutes to a shopping centre near her home in Penhalonga, a mining area 25 kilometres outside the third largest Zimbabwean city […]

For many Americans today, homeownership is an unattainable dream. In 2022, the average long-term US mortgage rate rose to 7 per cent for the first time in more than two decades. The median sales price of existing homes climbed […]

The bleary sea and sky that legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins captures in Empire of Light is the same landscape that painter JMW Turner saw from the Margate seafront in the early 1800s. Both men have […]

Low-income Americans will soon receive less in food assistance or completely lose their eligibility for the benefits, as the federal government ends policies adopted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that kept millions from […]

Just after 5.30pm on a Monday, the stand meant to hold free period products at the Edinburgh Central Library was empty. It wasn’t unusual – in fact it’s become somewhat of a routine. Ania Les, […]

One of Scotland’s national charities is moving forward with plans to open a dedicated support centre in Glasgow for women experiencing homelessness. The Simon Community Scotland intends for the space to provide gender-specific resources that […]

I sell Nový Prostor near the Masaryk railway station. It was my first sales location, and I don’t want to move to another place now I’ve gotten used to it. When the weather was warm, […]

In a dingy medical outpost near eastern Ukraine’s front lines, army medic Viktor battles to save lives on a daily basis. Nearly a year into Russia’s invasion, fighting now amounts to attritional duels of artillery and infantry assaults, […]

As a Black Jamaican, I’ve always been proud of my heritage, family and traditional beliefs. Born and raised as a child in Jamaica, my family came out of slavery, and from that experience they brought […]

The future of local newspapers is under threat, according to the UK parliament’s digital, culture, media and sport committee (DCMS) report released last month. This report into the sustainability of local journalism comes at a time when public […]

A 15-year-old girl paints her nails. The scene might seem commonplace, if it weren’t for the fact that, in the eyes of her family, her classmates and her neighbours, she is a boy. Her mother […]

At a porchfront coffee stand in the Cuban village of Isabela de Sagua, sunburned fishermen gather at first light to talk of wind, tide and, increasingly, the fine points of US immigration policy. The latest […]

On an early Sunday morning, a small group of people gathered inside a church a few blocks from the White House to watch a play examining solutions to homelessness. Written and organized by Street Sense […]

Sierra Leone’s new gender equality law will benefit women with political aspirations – as well as stimulate development, say analysts. The country’s President, Julius Maada Bio, signed the new Gender Equality and Women Empowerment into […]

One of Brazil’s street papers, Revista Traços, has been distributed in the capital city Brasilia for eight years and, for the past year and a half, in Rio de Janeiro. Like L’Itinéraire and all the […]

Peering out from under a large slab of concrete and brick, Abdulalim Muaini gestures weakly at his rescuers. It has been over two days since a massive earthquake brought his home in Hatay, Turkey, tumbling […]

“Vagrancy” – being found in the street without any visible means of support – was a crime in many parts of Australia right up to the final decades of the 20th century. In some jurisdictions, […]

It’s quite an eye-catcher when deaf people talk to each other without making a sound, but with a lot of physical effort, rapidly flying hands and lively facial expressions. It looks cool, but for hearing […]

Over the past year, cities across the United States have unveiled new policy plans to address homelessness amid rising concerns about health and crime – for homeless people themselves, as well as for surrounding communities. Notably, several proposals include […]

I wasn’t a popular kid; I hadn’t honed my social skills. I was just dorky, a prototype nerd. I had a pretty good sense of humour but I never really fit in. I never really […]

A year ago, Dr. Mayaalla MuQaddim Abdullah Al Saud was nearly asleep when neon-vested volunteers approached her tent while conducting an annual census of people experiencing homelessness. They asked how long she’d been sleeping outside, […]

Armed with a wooden stick, a bucket and a headlamp, Philippine construction worker Johnny Manlugay hunts every night for the eggs of sea turtles on the pristine beaches of the northern province of La Union. […]

One morning 18 months ago, Jaswant Singh Butola woke to find hairline cracks had spread up the walls of his house, which overlooks a railway being built to take pilgrims to Himalayan holy sites in […]

When Mogwai first burst out of the Glasgow underground rock scene in the mid-1990s, draped in a deafening squall of feedback, bleeding distortion and outlandish alcohol-fuelled bravado, few people would have bet on them still […]

INSP: What is The Big Issue Australia’s Women’s Workforce, and what was the impetus behind its creation? Simone Busija: The Big Issue Australia’s Women’s Workforce (WW) was created in 2010 as a means of providing […]

The winter of 2017 Portland, Oregon was hit with an unusually long ice storm. It would be deadly for people experiencing homelessness. Four people would tragically die of exposure. An older woman would walk into […]

Draussenseiter: “Housing First” is seen worldwide as a solution to eliminate homelessness in the longer term. However, this does not mean simply providing people on the street with an apartment, but rather check all areas […]

One of the biggest environmental challenges today is to treat land that is contaminated by toxic elements from industrial activity, elements like arsenic, antimony and tungsten. But these same elements can be brought to the Earth’s surface by natural […]

“If I return to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill me; I’m prepared to stay in a prison in Karachi than face those ruthless people,” said 24-year-old Afghan refugee, Sabrina Zalmai, referring to the recent crackdown […]

What would have happened to Jasmin and Josef if the hotel project from “Straßenblues” did not exist? When a social worker from Caritas speaks to Jasmin on Mönckebergstraße (one of Hamburg’s main shopping streets), tears […]

Basking in the heat, weekend crowds are gathered in the plaza in front of Taichung Railway Station. There are train passengers, marketgoers, young students energetically filming dance videos, and, as usual, Ms. Hu selling The […]

Cooped up at home, Pari Sediqi spends her days worrying how she will feed her sick husband and six children now that women are banned from carrying out aid work in Afghanistan. Add to that […]

Blacktown is teeming with pharmacies, GP clinics, medical centres and all the requisite facilities of health care. On Blacktown Road, they’re hard to miss, and just two minutes away stands Blacktown Hospital, that major in-patient […]

Until September, Aleksei Antropov was playing double bass for the Russian Philharmonic orchestra in Moscow. But when President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s first mobilisation since World War Two to boost his faltering invasion of Ukraine, […]

Footwear in the United States is a multibillion-dollar industry. The powerhouse market has seamlessly generated a major influential gateway into the minds of American youth and culture. Chris Hunt, a teacher at William Smith High […]

Friday 13 January was an important day for the streets of Mexico City, this “city of rights”. An organised group of homeless people decided to put a stop to the acts of social cleansing. They […]

It is 5 o’clock in the afternoon at Exit 2 of West Lake Station, and the crowd’s pace is starting to pick up under the grey and gloomy sky. When I first came to interview […]

Gone are those times when catastrophes were measured in terms of human suffering. Now, with an exception, Ukrainians victims of the Russian invasion, everything is calculated in just money. Following such a solid trend, major […]

Myanmar activists and 16 alleged victims of abuse have filed a criminal complaint in Germany, accusing top generals of instigating genocide against Rohingya Muslims and other atrocities since a military coup two years ago. The […]

“There was a time when the idea of becoming a clown would never have occurred to me,” Ines Rosner tells me. “As I child I mostly had bad experiences with clowns. I can remember seeing […]

The start of a new year these days signals the launch of Veganuary, a campaign which encourages people to give up animal products for the month of January. But while this time of the year […]

In Gaza’s only boxing club for girls, 15-year-old Farah Abu Al-Qomsan is practising her moves, trading jabs and punches with the other girls training with coach Osama Ayoub at the Palestine Boxing Centre. Since taking […]

Trott-war: You’re already known as a doctor who engages in voluntary work. Now you are also on the road as a lecturer. Is this a new development in your career? Why have you chosen to […]

Nicole doesn’t like to talk about the difficulties she has faced throughout her life and the time she spent living on the streets. She refers to those years as “a strange time”, but it is […]

He had suggested the lake as our meeting place, since nature, hiking and walks are an important part of his daily life. He finds peace and contemplation there, says Hartmut Haker. In the past, his […]

Jose Maria Casais’s 2,700 euros-a-month income from a pension and incapacity benefits ought to leave him better off than most of his fellow Spaniards. But Casais, a retired engineer living in Barcelona, says he is […]

It must have been the early noughties when I “met” my first artificial intelligence (AI), back when the internet was getting faster and just starting to become an essential part of our lives. As a […]

The South Indian State of Karnataka has been reeling for the past three years—the late arrival of monsoons, the surging temperatures, and drastic changes in the weather patterns are putting the state’s farmers in dire […]

“I feel proud to be a role model for people who are deaf. I am really thrilled to be part of this team. I’m from Portugal and I’m representing Portugal, I couldn’t be prouder.” If […]

Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the leaders of the Sicilian mafia, the Cosa Nostra, has finally been detained after 30 years on the run. His arrest came as around 100 police officers surrounded the private […]

Due to injuries, Auntie Hong and her husband lost their jobs as cleaners six years ago and had to sell chewing gum to make ends meet. Having been recommended by a vendor at the train […]

Youth riots that erupted in Berlin on New Year’s Eve have rekindled a debate over immigration just as Germany is preparing reforms to lure a new wave of skilled foreign workers to Europe’s largest economy. […]

During last year’s municipal elections in October, most candidates’ platforms were impressive. All candidates seemed to be addressing the same issues: more affordable housing, more treatment centres, safer streets for Chinatown and Vancouver as a […]

Seventy people took their own lives in prison in the first nine months of 2022. A huge number. In proportion, it is as if 75,000 suicides were recorded in Italy in the first nine months […]

For years, Emem Thomas’ body drew snarky remarks from slimmer classmates in southern Nigeria that shattered her confidence and natural affability. As teasing and taunts marred her teenage years, she gave up on dreams like […]

Andrea Voss-Frick has already attended hundreds of services as a believer. But her last regular mass was a long time ago. She just can’t stand it anymore – the anger, the disappointment and the frustration […]

More than 100 radio stations were shut down by the Venezuelan government this past year, accentuating the collapse of the media and further undermining the already meagre capacity of citizens to stay informed. In Venezuela’s […]

It’s a typical story in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city. With the failure to provide services such as refuse collection by the local municipality, township residents dump garbage wherever they fancy, and with time, dumpsites become […]

Forty years ago, the federal government slashed affordable housing budgets of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), marking the beginning of the contemporary crisis of […]

Parts of Mexico’s remote southern jungles have barely changed since the time of the ancient Maya. In the eyes of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a railway his government is building – known as the […]

In September I asked several homeless people if they were scared by the paint attacks (their real names have not been used). The first answer is usually the same and may baffle citizens from so-called […]

The need to communicate with another human being is quite human. Passers-by also have their share of stress on a daily basis. Here’s what I tell my clients: “I’m here to sell a magazine, but […]

Amjed was a mere high school student when Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed in 2003: “It was shocking to witness a political change of this scale and significance. A young man of my age could only […]

As European households brace for energy shortages this winter and leaders draw up support packages to help people heat homes in the coming months, experts fear that the largest minority on the continent, the Roma, […]

The Big Issue Korea: You look a bit nervous today. Kim Youngdeok: Because it’s my first time [being interviewed]! Sometimes, people can’t understand my words very well because of how I talk. I have to […]

Fabrizio Cardinali, 72, does not crave the bright city lights. Indeed, he has no use for electricity and for more than half a century has lived entirely off the grid. That makes him one of […]

Ibrahim, Angella, Rachad and everyone else here had their whole lives ahead of them in Ukraine where they had built something for themselves. It is a coincidence that most of them are from Kharkiv, a […]

According to Jaroslav Pavlíček, an expert on surviving in the wild, a dog is the best companion for surviving out in the wild because it protects you from bears, warms you up when it is […]

On a sunny Tuesday following an early Vancouver snowfall, the air crisp and the sun shining, Chelsea Brent walks down Powell Street in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) armed with bright blue bags the colour of […]

Big Issue Korea: How are you holding up these days? Have you been eating well? Lee Bora: I’m not doing too well, to be honest. I was born in 1952, so I’ll be turning 71 […]

The activist and artist Keith Haring once said that “art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further”. The power of art as an avenue to advocate […]

Alexander is watchful around women. He has a tale to tell. Alexander is an Assistant Manager in a large logistics firm; he often works 50 hours per week and visits the gym before or after […]

Scientists have recently revived several large viruses that had been buried in the frozen Siberian ground (permafrost) for tens of thousands of years. The youngest virus to be revived was a sprightly 27,000 years old. And the […]

A hearty bite into an apple or the noisy crunch of a carrot. For some, the sounds of people eating – such as those coming from their mouths, tongues or jaws – arouse feelings of […]

***Note to editors: This article is for PRINT ONLY*** She felt she had been chosen. And so Andrea Zwicklangl – then 31 and working as a PR consultant in Hamburg in an open-plan office, with […]

Over 20 years, Russian pensioner Vladimir Ovchinnikov gained a following for his street murals in the small town of Borovsk, some 70 miles (115 km) southwest of Moscow, many of which depicted the plight of […]

In the year 1923, right after the establishment of the Irish Free State, civil turmoil continues to rage across Ireland. But on Inisherin, a remote, fictional island off the west coast, the townsfolk couldn’t care […]

The latest whodunnit from the byzantine mind of writer-director Rian Johnson harbours countless tantalising mysteries, chief among them: what exactly is a glass onion? On its surface, the title refers to the comically colossal, crystalline […]

Police have arrested 25 people accused of planning to overthrow the German government in a series of raids across the country. The group is accused of trying to instate Heinrich XIII – a descendant of German royalty […]

The Randall’s Island “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center” opened on 19 October, 2022, to house asylum seekers arriving in New York City. The New York Immigration Coalition quickly denounced poor conditions at the tent encampments on […]

The saga of living and surviving homelessness continues. Just when I got comfortable in my stabilization room it seemed like my past hit me again—it was like déjà vu. The bed bugs started to come […]

A smoky haze hangs over India’s northern plains and its capital, New Delhi, every year as winter sets in, raising fears for the health of many millions of people as authorities order fixes that do […]

The Big Issue Korea and its sister papers around the world have faced difficulties as a result of COVID-19. Has your sales volume decreased substantially, too, Big Pan? As of 2022, the minimum hourly wage […]

A new report by the United Nations estimates 339 million people, or 1 in 23, around the world currently need emergency assistance to survive. A rise of nearly 20 per cent from last year. An […]

Nina Melenets finally buried her son in November, more than seven months after she said he was killed by shelling in their village in eastern Ukraine. The 62-year-old is still looking for her husband, Serhiy, […]

Almost three years of pandemic restrictions have been hard for 23-year-old Chinese villager Zu Wenbao, but thanks to Beijing-based Chen’s Studio, music has become his saving grace. Zu is one of the 14 million people […]

Much like its architect, Driftwood Castle will disappear soon with the rising river. Within a few months, the swelling tributary will undo the architecture and sweep away its remnants — if Portland Parks and Recreation […]

In a case with potentially far-reaching consequences for tribal sovereignty, a divided Supreme Court debated the constitutionality of a 1978 law designed to prevent the separation of Native families and communities – the Indian Child […]

Unemployed and unable to support his family of four, Hussein Hamadeh, 51, now spends his days trying to find help to weather a protracted economic crisis that some Lebanese fear has become the new norm. […]

Right now, attorneys from the Lawyer’s Committee on Civil Rights (LCCR)—alongside the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Coalition on Homelessness—are suing the City and County of San Francisco for their main response to […]

Damaris Anyango [not her real name] was recently discharged from Kenyatta National Hospital, battling the twin challenge of cervical cancer and HIV. She is 50 years old and was diagnosed with HIV nearly ten years […]

Today, most people are aware that it was European nations that enabled, and profited from, the trans-Atlantic slave trade. History books, fiction and films have showed us the trade’s inhumane brutality and the extreme hardships […]

I was born in the maternity ward in Alingsås in 1958, the same year the new Ullevi arena was built. I grew up in Gothenburg because my father got a job at the spinning mill […]

Big Issue Korea: Are you in good health these days? Did you make it safely through the COVID-19 pandemic? Kwak Changgab: I caught COVID-19 once. I was in an isolation facility for nine days. They […]

When Grace Tame appears on the Zoom screen, she is in a hotel room. At the time of this interview, the 27-year-old is nearing the end of a two-week national tour, travelling to seven cities […]

Hinz&Kunzt: Volunteering has a very good reputation. Many say that volunteers are almost religiously revered. What’s wrong with doing good? Silke van Dyk: We’re not criticising people who do voluntary work. No society can function […]

In The Menu’s high-end world of molecular gastronomy, the most exclusive experience might also be a trap. On a date with extreme foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), cynical outsider Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) is thrust into the […]

With the ongoing Ukraine war, tensions in Europe are on the rise. This is both due to an influx of war related-refugees to Central European cities, and discontent over the related rising cost of energy. As bombs fall […]

Zeina lights another cigarette. “Why are they punishing my children?” she asks. From her balcony we look out over the car park. Zeina was given her work schedule for the week yesterday, and her shift […]

New York City Mayor Eric Adams rolled out a plan on Tuesday to allow more mentally ill homeless people to be hospitalized against their will in order to tackle “a crisis we see all around […]

INSP: The winter months are cold and dark – what problems do they pose for street paper vendors and other people who are homeless and sleeping rough? Peter Andersen: First of all, there can be […]

It’s mostly people in their twenties sitting on a terrace in the shade of a beautiful grove of trees: black clothes, piercings, tattoos and some purple streaks in their hair. It could be a trendy […]

For displaced villagers living near the border of Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia, the war in Ukraine has brought back terrifying memories of Russian bombardments. “I know what it feels like hiding in the […]

The migrant crisis is in the headlines. Again. But the stories of those fleeing conflict, environmental threat, persecution or poverty are not. Days before a far-right terror attack at a Kent immigration centre, and before […]

Content warning: The following story contains explicit descriptions of sex, sex work and drug use “I just wanna fuck your brains out till you forget everything but my name. I don’t shave and I love […]

I’ve been selling The Big Issue for ten years. I had family members who sold it and they used to tell me how it works, how it helps and how it supports homeless people. The […]

The biggest houses in Bradeni, such as the one in which Daniel and his family live, line the road. It is a long, straight stretch of road, where many people step extra hard on the […]

The notion that individuals experiencing homelessness are at fault for their own experience and are inherently bad people is a common thread in many cultures. It crosses over political ideologies and is a commonly held […]

Since becoming the highest-grossing film of all time back in 2009, Avatar has polarised viewers. Audiences span the spectrum of obsessives fascinated by its next-gen technical achievements and tall, blue, digital aliens, to haters deeming […]

The past Growing up in middle class America my family held on to old Christmas traditions: The tree, the decorations, and the soft glow of the lights. The music that just fills your heart with […]

***THIS ARTICLE IS FOR PRINT ONLY. DO NOT USE ONLINE*** Small? Large? And where on earth is the sugar? It’s an unusual sight: the Swiss national football coach, Murat Yakin, is standing behind the bar […]

Martina with her dog Eliška at Lužiny and Luka, Prague Eliška is five years old. I have no idea what breed she actually is. I found her advertised when she was just a puppy. I […]

As I write these lines, I am on my way to the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. Since Putin’s attack on Ukraine on 24 February, well over a million people have already fled: to Poland, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia […]

Climate breakdown is well under way. So it is no wonder that a defining conflict of the COP27 climate talks in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt is over who pays for the damages that are already taking place, and how. […]

When did you start selling The Big Issue? I started working in January this year. I started in the middle of the cold season. Fortunately, the sales stand was not outside the subway station but […]

In Denver, USA, there has been a rise in the use of RVs (motorhomes or campervans) by people experiencing homelessness. Devine Carter and Cornelius Jenkin have been living in a 22-foot trailer for over 18 months. […]

Skipping lunch each day and watching television in blankets to keep warm is not how Ann and Keith Hartley envisaged their retirement in Burnley, the northern English town hit hardest by Britain’s cost of living […]

Pacific island countries are highly vulnerable to climate change, and several have disappeared – and more could sink under the sea owing to a rise in water levels. According to UN figures, severe climate-change-induced weather conditions […]

You may be asking yourself how the three words in the title of this article fit together. Let me explain why I have grouped them together. The most recent count of homeless people I can […]

Soaring living costs are impacting many globally. As 2022 enters its final months, inflation and its very real effect on individuals is showing no sign of relenting. On the streets of Budapest, Hungary, the homeless […]

Abbas Elwan drilled well after well in a desperate bid to find water for his family’s parched farmlands in southern Iraq. After yet another attempt failed in August, he took a gun from the kitchen […]