identity: can we make a difference?

‘One person can and does make a difference.’ (Albert Schweitzer)

‘We need to cut the cost of being poor.’ (John Bird)

Habits of Mind: Thinking Interdependently

John Bird is a British social entrepreneur and now, life peer. He is best known as the co-founder of ‘The Big Issue’, a magazine edited by professional journalists and sold by street vendors who are homeless or vulnerably housed. This week we are thinking about ways that we can make a difference and I so thought he might provide a valuable example of what one person can do when the need for greater social justice becomes a driving force in life.

John Bird began life in humble circumstances. He was born in Notting Hill to a poor London Irish family. At the age of five he became homeless and resided in an orphanage between the ages of seven and ten and was often excluded from school. He became a butcher’s boy after leaving the orphanage and supplemented his life by stealing. Between work, he spent several spells in prison during his teens and twenties, where he learnt to read and write and learnt the basics of printing. For a while he attended Chelsea School of Art but was homeless again by 1967 and often sleeping rough. For two weeks he worked as a dishwasher in the Houses of Parliament canteen, an institution he would later return to as a life peer. However, in the early 1970s he started to build upon his prison education and set up a small-scale printing and publishing business in London.

But John Bird never forgot just how difficult his early years were, and the boy certainly gave rise to a man who was determined to make a difference for those who faced social injustices, resulting in poverty. So, in September 1991 he launched The Big Issue with Gordon Roddick, co-founder of The Body Shop, another business which made the promotion of social justice central in their business model. The Big Issue magazine started as a London venture but expanded with specific editions and services to other British cities, and then to other countries. John Bird is also the founder of the International Network of Street Papers, which now incorporates over 100 street papers, and is published in 34 countries in 24 languages. And in 2009, The Big Issue launched a social investment fund, and has since invested more than £30 million in hundreds of social enterprises making a positive impact in communities across the UK.

John Bird has maintained the drive to make a difference where he can even though he is now in his seventies. His early life experiences were tough but he did not allow them to define his identity, instead he used them to guide him about the ways he might make a difference for those in similar circumstances. As a result, the causes that we hold close to our hearts are likely to be linked to the things that we have experienced in our lives. These perhaps provide the driving force to make a difference where we can. We may not be able to change everything we would wish, but we all have the capacity to do things however small, that can make an incremental difference towards improving the well-being of others.   

Christine Crossley