Big Issue - Guest Blog from Jan

Yesterday Claire arrived in Cape Town from Knysna to join the writing team of the Big Issue. For those of you who don’t know, TBI is a magazine devoted to the homeless people in Cape Town. They can buy the magazine from the organisation and then sell it to the general public. Normally you would find these vendors (as we call them) on the city streets, at shopping mall entrances or near traffic lights where they hope to catch shoppers and drivers unaware. In doing so, they can make a handsome profit (6 rands for each sale). Rather than begging on the streets, this allows them to acquire a small income while building their confidence. Some of them will move up in the world to unprecedented heights. The support they get from the Big Issue (it is also a social support organisation), will be basic in finding an official job later on.

The magazine itself is made by professional journalists, students and interns and its core audience is the socially conscious Capetonian - the he or she who can afford to pay the 12 rands and wants to give support to the not so fortunate fellow-man.

In the magazine a lot attention is given to social issues. Aids, sexual abuse, housing problems, drugs, gangster violence are all everyday realities in the city, and people need to be made aware. Fortunately, there are also lighter topics, as not everything in Cape Town is dark, dangerous and gloomy. I remember fun features on punk bands who sing Afrikaans, alien abductions in Africa, and informal eating cultures where you don’t eat in a restaurant but stay in people’s actual homes.

Claire will now bring her own experiences and glorious Belfast background into the equation. We expect a lot of her but have no worries that she will deliver. The only fear is that she will find life in Cape Town so distracting and fun and bizarre that she won’t have time to write. That, or she may be scooped away by a hard-boiled, non-African alien, in which case we will stop our presses and start looking for her immediately. For now, TBI is glad to have her.

By the way, we haven’t spotted any cockroaches, yet!