🇬🇧 Colder than winter: ‘Big Issue’ exposes the brutality of silence and indifference on British streets

The British weekly magazine, Big Issue, which gives homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income by selling their copies, reveals data from a survey, conducted by the Kokoro agency, with truths sharper than the British winter.

Fifty-four per cent of approaches made by magazine salesmen are met with absolute silence from passers-by. What's more, it was found that 63% of Britons believe that society is unlearning how to interact positively with strangers. Have we lost the ability to socialise?

The collapse of the casual connection is the subject of a beautiful campaign launched by Big Issue on 12 November (see below) and which is available on YouTube. The scene contrasts the stationary salesman, who tells his story of loss, including unemployment and separation, with the mass of Christmas shoppers who pass by indifferently, without even looking at him. Directed by Dean G. Moore and narrated by actor Christopher Eccleston, The questions we face (Issues we face) was filmed in real time and without cuts, using the shot-by-shot technique.

In one of his most striking scenes, Michal Hall, a magazine salesman at Bristol's busy Temple Meads railway station, sums up the impact of the indifference of others on him. He says he can cope with the cold and rain of the British winter, but not with the indifference of passers-by, who treat him as part of their street furniture.

For Tamara Putzu, a sales assistant at Big Issue in Holloway Road, north London, connection precedes sales. “Talking, connecting - creating a community.” This is how Tamara makes her living: for her, the money comes from meeting people, not just from the magazine.

At the screening, some viewers of the video reported that the campaign touches on a wound that hurts more now, as the Christmas holidays approach. Christmas makes the disconnection worse, in their view, and kindness is seen as the only possible bridge.

And we end with a clarification, the best antidote to prejudice. Big Issue sellers buy the magazine and then resell it. This is work, not begging. Stop, talk, support.

Source: Big Issue 1694