Contributoria

One of the first things you’re supposed to do when you get to work is check the diary. I found the following entry from the night before and wasn’t fazed at all. Read more

Since the 1959 revolution, Cubans have been using makeshift rafts to get to Florida. Can we compare these refugees with those in the Mediterranean Sea? Read more

In the south of Spain, the street is the collective living room. Vibrant sidewalk cafes are interspersed between configurations of two to five lawn chairs where neighbours come together to chat over the day’s events late into the night. Read more

When I first met Big Issue seller Sharon back in February, she quoted me a line from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Read more

Established as temporary emergency housing in 2007, Blikkiesdorp is where Cape Town’s human flotsam and jetsam washes up - and for most of its residents their only other option would be to live on the streets Read more

What must the scale of the financial gain be to lure men to cross borders and scale fences in the dead of night to lie in wait for their prey, the magnificent unsuspecting Rhinos? Read more

Thirty years, but probably less - that is how long Botswana’s Kalahari bushmen have left before their way of life and culture are consigned to the history books. With their looming demise, which is fuelled by diamonds and economic growth, the world is about to lose one of the oldest hunting peoples. Read more

Do you have a friend who just told you they identify as a trans man? Did your cousin change their Facebook profile to genderqueer? Allison Declercq explains what that means and how you can show support. Read more

In the mountains of Iraq’s Kurdish region, a small NGO is using art to change the lives of young Syrian refugees living in a former prison, some of whom are survivors of the wave of recent migrant drownings in the Mediterranean, and rehumanise them in the eyes of the world. Read more

The Covered Market in Oxford is simultaneously cheap shoe shop gaudy, and hipsterific. I’m swathed in a gamey fug of meat smells, contained by the low ceiling. Each turn around a corner brings me a fresh sight of hanging flesh; that is, if I’m lucky enough not to to be blinded by a swinging rabbit carcass. Read more