Annual reports & accounts

This week, the 2018 INSP Global Street Paper Summit has been held in Glasgow, giving street paper staff from countries throughout the network the opportunity to discuss the issues affecting their vendors in our modern world. According to recent news reports in the US state of Portland, 52 per cent of all arrests last year in the Portland area were made against people on the streets, and 86 per cent of those were for non-violent violations. The city’s street paper, Street Roots, surveyed its vendor about their first-hand experience with law enforcement.

Last night, at the 2018 INSP Awards, The Big Issue Taiwan was victorious in the Best Design category. Part of their win can be put down to the work of Aaron (Yung-chen Nieh) who, remarkably, designed 95 out of the last 100 covers of the street paper. His contemporary and stylish designs have endowed the covers of the magazine with a unique visual style that has not only proved popular with readers, but which has also attracted a great deal of attention from professional designers. For the magazine’s 100th issue, Aaron shared his insights regarding how to design an effective front cover and talked more about his work with The Big Issue Taiwan.

This year’s INSP Talks – a regular feature of the Global Street Paper Summit – was focused on social enterprise around the world, including what street papers are doing to branch out into other social businesses, how they are adapting their publication to come more into line with the modern social enterprise landscape, and a look at why Scotland is leading the way in the industry.

The Global Street Paper Summit is an opportunity to focus in on a lot of the amazing work being done by street papers. However, that doesn’t mean that the problems affecting their vendors are overlooked. In Germany, the number of violent attacks on homeless people – arson, assault, rape – is increasing. Figures released by the German Federal Criminal Police Office [Bundeskriminalamt: BKA] show that, year on year, the number of attacks is continuing to grow. Hinz&Kunzt examined the reasons why such violence is on the rise and asks what can be done to stop it.

With the INSP Global Street Paper Summit in Glasgow this week, it’s a great opportunity to hear from one of the city’s vendors. Daniel is a familiar face in the west end of Glasgow, and you might even recognise him from past stories featured in the INSP website and News Service. He even went viral not that long ago. Here, he tells us how he came to be a Big Issue vendor, getting back into education and his love of graphic novels.

This week marks the 600th time the INSP News Service email will drop into the inboxes of members across the global street paper network. To celebrate, we looked back at some of the stories that have spread throughout the world thanks to the service, and hear from some of the beneficiaries of this unique editorial support platform.

The ONE Festival of Homeless Arts showcases and celebrates works of art, in a variety of mediums, imagined and created by people who have experienced homelessness. Curated and compiled by artist and campaigner David Tovey, the exhibition at the Diorama Arts Centre kicked off its second instalment on World Homeless Day.

The CEO of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) Neil McInroy brought his outspoken and enthralling way of striving for a more progressive economy to the 2017 Global Street Paper Summit in Manchester. He spoke in greater detail with INSP about how he perceives himself, and his organization, as outside the mainstream and how the work of street papers fits in to his worldview.

Frank Turner rocked Manchester’s iconic music venue, the O2 Ritz, on the final night of the 2017 Global Street Paper Summit at fundraising gig Street Noise.

For the second keynote speech of the INSP 2017 Global Street Paper Summit, economist and CEO of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies Neil McInroy addressed delegates on the social problems our failing economy has created.

Adam Smith, founder of The Real Junk Food Project, gives after dinner speech to INSP 2017 delegates at Manchester’s Victoria Baths to round off day one of this year’s Global Street Paper Summit.

Epidemiologist, and writer of the best-selling book The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson, grabs the attention of delegates with the opening keynote speech of the 2017 Global Street Paper Summit.

The 2017 INSP Global Street Paper Summit kicked off on Monday at a welcome reception at Manchester Town Hall. After speeches from Lord Mayor Eddy Newman, INSP Chief Executive Maree Aldam and Chair of The Big Life Group Edna Robinson, we heard from delegates about what they expect from the week ahead.

A year on from the Homeless World Cup in Glasgow, the tournament is still changing lives. The Legacy Project has helped event volunteers – all of whom had experience of homelessness or substance abuse issues – to continue improving their skills and confidence through sport. INSP met volunteer John Mooney, who is now a tennis coach.

INSP is very proud to announce that a ground-breaking 1 million words have been downloaded from the News Service’s updated online platform since December of last year. Here’s a look at why.

Watch as media experts unpick the ideas of fake news and ‘alternative facts’ at INSP’s lively debate.