Student profile
May Yong
Arts student
Organisation: The Big Issue
Why did you get involved with The Big Issue?
I thought it would be useful to combine my community engagement experience with my course in Media and Communications. The Big Issue inspires me because of its independent, 'street-cred' style of publishing and I was interested in learning the ropes from the editorial committee. I wanted to talk and interact with the vendors, some of whom are perceived as failures of society, ridden with all sorts of addictions, are homeless, drunk, etc. and understand their views in life.
What does your volunteering with The Big Issue involve?
Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to help out in the editorial office. My volunteer experience was spent mostly three hours a week behind the reception counter where other than performing office tasks and selling magazines to the vendors, I was able to interact with them and learn their life stories.
Describe challenges you encountered and how you dealt with them.
The biggest challenge was the exposure to foreign (to me) conversation topics, vernacular and outback slurs and the deep Aussie twang of the vendors. The vendors were coming from a totally different background from me as an international student and I had to find something in common when chatting with them. With some, it was conservative topics like the weather and mag sales. When I was brave enough, I would try to coax a story from them. If I pressed the right buttons, the stories would pour forth and the vendors were more than willing to relate experiences and stories over their coffee break.
What do you think you learnt from this experience?
Humility. Every vendor has a unique story to offer and their experiences are varied. They are rich sources of inspiration and I was given the opportunity to view them in a different light. They taught me about my priviledge and their foolhardiness as a group of people who have seeped through the cracks of a capitalist society. From them I learnt success, as recognised in the real world to be one-dimensional, was actually multi-dimensional. I also learnt that charity is not always as important as respect.