From beggar into street-vendor

The Finnish version of homeless people’s Big Issue magazine was launched in Helsinki on Monday

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By Sirkku Aalto
     
      The sky is leaking and a stingy old wind blows the raindrops directly into people’s faces.
      The selling on the street of copies of Iso Numero, the Finnish version of the Big Issue magazine aimed to support the cause of the poor and the homeless, is getting under way in less than ideal conditions.
      “The effort has not exactly blown us away yet”, formulates Hanna-Kaisa Hellsten, managing director of Kultti ry, the company publishing the magazine.
      In the course of Monday morning, around ten people have come to collect some magazines from the yard of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in order to sell them on.
      “The vendors include Finnish homeless people as well as Roma beggars”, Hellsten explains outside the museum.
     
One of them is Ionut Cicea, 29, who has arrived in Finland from Romania.
      Cicea, whose English vocabulary is somewhat limited, picks up five magazines.
      The purpose of Iso Numero is to help the homeless and those of meagre means to earn money through selling the magazine, rather than through begging on the streets of the capital.
      Cicea, who previously implored passers-by on the sidewalks for hand-outs, is planning to sell all the magazines he has picked up today, but it is a slow start.
     
After half an hour of work, Cicea, whose vending pitch is quite a good one - the well-trafficked spot by the statue of the Three Blacksmiths at the corner of Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie - still has all five magazines on his lap.
      Smartly-dressed people keep flowing by the peppy vendor in a steady stream.
      But so far he has only attracted rejecting gestures from the busy passers-by.
      Fifteen minutes later Cicea returns from his warm-up break into the throng of people, now at the side of the Narinkkatori Square, next to the Kamppi shopping mall.
      The rain has passed on, but business is still non-existent.
      Those walking by are pretending not to notice the man in his woollen cap, and a measure of dejection is evident in Cicea’s appearance.
      Almost an hour has passed.
     
The hands on the clock on the wall of the old bus station have moved a good distance forward by the time Meri Wikberg, pushing a pram, stops in front of Cicea.
      Money and a copy of the magazine change hands at last.
      Cicea’s face brightens up instantly.
      “I feel good”, he says with his eyes sparkling, now with only four magazines left in his hand.
     
The sun is peeking through the clouds when a familiar-looking man moments later returns to the museum yard with a broad grin on his face.
      In about twenty minutes, Cicea has managed to sell the rest of his magazines.
      He has returned to pick up another ten copies.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 31.5.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Big Issue-style newspaper to go on sale from Monday (30.5.2011)

Links:
  The Big Issue (Wikipedia)
  Kultti

SIRKKU AALTO / Helsingin Sanomat
sirkku.aalto@hs.fi