THE Big Issue has secured nearly a quarter of a million dollars in Lotterywest Funding to consolidate and grow its Western Australian operations over the next two years.
Lotterywest has provided $223,000 and that money will be used to improve support and training for magazine vendors, expansion into country areas, further development of savings and credit schemes to address poverty and steps to examine other small opportunities for people on the margins.
A not-for-profit partnership between Ruah Community Services, The Big Issue Australia and The Body Shop, The Big Issue gets homeless and other disadvantaged people to sell copies of The Big Issue magazine.
In effect these people are given the chance to set up their own small business selling the magazine.
Vendors sell the magazine for $3 and gain half of the cover price for themselves. The other $1.50 goes straight back into producing the newspaper.
The Big Issue WA Advisory Board chairman Peter Kenyon said the vendors were the only people who made money out of the magazine in WA.
"The Lotterywest grant is critical to the growth of this opportunity," he said.
The Big Issue is a magazine based on similar projects in the UK, the US and South Africa.
In Australia The Big Issue was first established in Melbourne and now also sells in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra.