The Pavement celebrates its tenth anniversary

The Pavement Magazine celebrated its tenth anniversary on 11 September with a star-studded comedy night at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington. 

The event was a real blast and featured renowned comedians Stewart Lee and Robin Ince, whose performances highlighted the support the small-format magazine has gathered during its first decade in print.

The Pavement Magazine is a homeless publication founded in 2004 and designed to fill a vacuum by producing content featuring essential practical information alongside hard-hitting and entertaining reportage primarily aimed at and tailored to a homeless readership. In the past ten years the Pavement has gradually established itself as not just a useful magazine but an entertaining publication with the magazine’s Word on the Street programme encouraging contributions from homeless writers.

Karin Goodwin, the magazine’s editor says  “The founder, Richard Burdett, saw a real need for a publication that put information straight into the hands of those who needed it most; homeless people themselves….We believe that our readers themselves are the experts on homelessness”.

The night was not just about celebrating The Pavement’s anniversary. It also aimed to raise awareness of the charity, boost the magazine’s profile and generate desperately needed funds.

Ince's strong support for the cause is the only reason for his performance, coming as it did six months into a five year sabbatical from the stand-up circuit. Indeed, all the performers talked about the need to support the Pavement with a genuine passion that fuelled the joyful and positive atmosphere of the celebration in the theatre on the night. Sandwiched between the two featured comedians were strong performances from the comedy duo Read-Wilson and Hughes Hughes and the singer Barb Jung whose distinctive voice has lost none of its soulful power.

Robin Ince rocked the house with the stand-out performance on the night. His wickedly clever style of of jumping from one story to another was delivered at brisk pace, developing themes that eventually found their way back home, all the while stabbing logic in the face with a dagger of razor sharp reason.

In contrast Stewart Lee’s act, delivered at slow pace, was all about deconstructing the art form of stand up comedy. Throughout his career he has chosen to tread his own path, pushing the boundaries set by the mainstream in order to continually develop his own routine.

The same could be said of The Pavement’s journey over the past ten years. In Karin’s words "The night itself was a great mix; there was caustic wit, warmth and laughter, political agitation and generally an outpouring of support and goodwill for The Pavement and all it stands for”. She adds "Not only does the money raised help us to keep printing copies of The Pavement, which are in constantly high demand; it also encourages us to keep working harder to make sure The Pavement goes from strength-to-strength."

All in all the night was a worthy celebration of the ten years in which the Pavement has struggled on a shoestring to establish itself as a publication that genuinely helps those on the street. Laughter maybe the best medicine for life but for some of the disenfranchised on the street there is no better tonic than The Pavement Magazine. To find out more, visit the Pavement Magazine website.

Homeslessness organisations get a boost from Poached

by Yousif Farah

It’s been a busy year for Poached in 2014, not least because we’ve been able to work with a number of homelessness organisations through our collaborative projects.

Our latest collaboration will see us join forces with the Pavement magazine. The Pavement was founded in 2005 as a registered charity in response to the increasing need of a publication focused on homelessness and directed at those affected by it.

The magazine is concise and informative. It could be described as a rough sleeper’s A to Z, providing the reader with a list of day centres, soup kitchens and places to gather advice and assistance regarding housing.  It also has features on health, legal advice and an insider’s view of life in hostels. It also covers the journalistic aspects of homelessness through comprehensive coverage of the news from the streets, often dealing with topics neglected by the mainstream press.

Even though the publication relies on volunteers, they are highly trained and experienced journalists and homeless sector professionals, also among the volunteers are some of the country’s best cartoonists (many of them Private Eye contributors). Some of our own Big Issue online journalism trainees have contributed articles to The Pavement in recent months.

The Pavement is well established in London, Scotland and the West Midlands, with over 4,000 copies distributed to over 70 hostels, day centres, homeless surgeries, soup-runs and libraries in London alone.

Its sole purpose is to support people at times of crisis, aiming to make life that bit easier for homeless people through providing them with information that can both help reduce short-term hardship, as well as enable them to guide their own future. The Pavement relies entirely on donations by public, to donate or read more visit The Pavement.

As well as working with the Pavement, we got a welcome and rather unusual offer of support from the world of music.

When blues artists Mete Ege got in touch with Poached offering to donate the proceeds of his new single Ghosts of London to support our Big Issue online journalism training programme, we were thrilled to accept this unexpected yet generous offer! The song draws from Mete’s own experience of sleeping rough in the capital: “Knowing that the money from the sales will be used to train homeless people feels right. Everyone deserves a chance to break the vicious cycle.”

Finally, in October, we helped to promote a comedy gig to raise funds for the Hackney Winter Night Shelter, which provides rough sleepers in the borough with a bed for the night, a hot meal and a warm smile.  Headlined by Stewart Lee and compered by Daniel Kitson, A Belter for the Shelter was a huge success and our writer Martin was there to review it.