Beanies, Walkley, Sheffield

L-R: Chris, Jan, Matt and Cath

Beanies is a co-op selling fresh fruit, veg and wholefoods from its current location on Crooks Valley Road.

The Co-op - Since 1986, they’ve built up a business that now supports 19 full- and part-time co-op members. Matt is the longest-running member, who joined in 1992, Jan joined a few months later. There’s a flat management structure where all the current 13 directors have an equal say.

Customers - From local households buying groceries for a week, to students buying two mushrooms, a carrot and an onion every day. Loyal customers travel from as far as Chesterfield, wanting to follow the ethics of natural wholefoods. They trust Beanies to have explored the food’s provenance, so they can buy what they want, without having to read every label.

Deliveries - They operate a box scheme, delivering organic fruit and veg across Sheffield. They’ll meet the most exacting of requests, such as including a pack of ground cumin (if a shopping list requests half a teaspoon of ground cumin!)

Suppliers - The co-op has built up strong roots with local growers, such as the kitchen gardens at Worley Hall. It’s even been known for Matt, who is a good gardener, to visit a grower and advise on how and what to grow and when to pick it. Beanies know what they can sell and advise what they would buy from a grower. They are soon to start selling bread made in their own bakery.

Economics - They are not sure yet about the affects of the economic crisis, because it’s always slower in summer, students aren’t around and families are on holiday. But they probably won’t be voting themselves a wage raise until they know what is going to happen. The post office, two doors up, recently closed and this has impacted how many people pop in.

Any fresh produce that’s past its best is sold off at a cheaper price. If still unsold, it becomes staff food. Then it might be given to people who come in to ask for food for their guinea pigs, iguanas, rabbits etc, then finally it goes onto a compost heap at a local farm.

Local community - Some locals have greater needs than others and those working at the shop do what they can. People might ask to use the phone because their electricity has been cut off, or for 20p for something, or sometimes borrow money from members of staff. It’s even been known for the shop to provide safe haven for someone at risk, or offer their van if transport is needed. These kindnesses can work both ways. For example, if a local saw a break-in at the shop, they might be more likely to call the police.

Beanies will try and help the community’s more vulnerable people where they can. They take shopping to people’s cars or carry it home for them if they can’t manage. One elderly woman would walk to Beanies but didn’t like the walk back to her empty house, for fear she wouldn't make it. So, each time, a member of the co-op would escort her home. Another woman couldn’t get to the shop any more, so Jan would pop in with a delivery each day during her lunch break. Tea and biscuits developed into a long-term friendship.

Politics - Recently, a Green Party Councillor came into the shop and Jan complained ‘our vigil in the peace garden was broken up and we were moved on’. The councillor was supportive and said ‘email me and I’ll do something’. Jan says the shop represents the tip of the environmental iceberg and that she often notices the ‘green’ community connections taking place in the queue.

Hayri Öztürk, Bakkal, Üsküdar, Istanbul

The role Hayri Öztürk has played in his neighbourhood has been two-fold. Most of the day, he sits in his Bakkal, a shop that’s a cornerstone of Istanbul’s city life, serving his customers, smoking cigarettes and fingering his Tespih [prayer beads]. Every day, from 8am to 10pm, neighbours drop in for a chat, to buy milk, bread, sweets, cigarettes, or things they forgot to buy at the supermarket. He has a credit book which is used daily, so people can pay at the end of the month, or when they have the money.

Hayri often keeps an eye on his grandson and other children in the neighbourhood, and whilst there for the convenience of others, he seems content with his lot. He owns the shop and the room next door, and lives in the block across the street. “I make ten lira a day and I spend ten lira an evening, at the local club”, he says.

Though when asked about politics in this quiet backstreet of the religiously conservative Üsküdar, a large and densely populated district on Istanbul's Asian side, he spoke of another part of his life. He described this as a low-income area and he does what he can do to help others out, such as give 5 loaves of bread a day to some Roma families nearby.

Before now he may well have been in a position to do a little bit more. Fifteen years ago he retired from the police force. Since then he’s been the elected head of the neighbourhood or Muhtar, but lost the election this year. As Muhtar he was responsible for government activity at the local level, and authorised, amongst other things, to issue copies of official papers: ID Cards, certificate’s of domicile, etc. He took us to his room next door.

This room is the Muhtar’s office, home to all the records of his activities (and that of his successor), with the walls covered in photographs of every man in the neighbourhood, a few photos of him and some press clippings. It feels like a museum, overlooked by a large photo of Ataturk.

Sidestepping the large bottles of Coke stored here, he pulled out a logbook detailing everyone in the neighbourhood and any official actions taken. Next he produced a book of deeds he’d done, a sort of register of assistance. But it was the 100’s of head shots of men that was the most compelling record. He explained they are used to help identify suspects of crimes, but if they were dead he’d write that on their photo. He pointed out one photo he’d tried, but failed, to pull off the wall to blow up to make a large print for the man's funeral.

When asked ‘why men only?’ he said if he put women’s photos up, they would argue and be jealous with each other about who was the most attractive. He introduced us to a woman from the neighbourhood, who was a lawyer, and answered the same question. She said it was because men were the head of the families and the more public face of each family. "So men would be the ones doing the formal, administrative things of public life."

Our local guide, Gunes said the photo wall system was, at least in her experience, unique.

Çarşı, Beşiktaş Istanbul

We visited Beşiktaş fish market because this was the origin for the Çarşı, an unofficial supporters club of Beşiktaş FC. At each match, they chant and show huge banners responding to current or political affairs with witty, anarchistic slogans like, “We are against everything, except Ataturk” that are picked up by TV, and beamed across the world.

Çarşi literally means Market, and we wanted to find out what the relationship was between the market and the Çarşi now. Everyone of the fish sellers we spoke to was ‘Beşiktaş’, and proud they’d just won the league [again]. We learnt, that yes indeed, the Çarşi, are named after here, and the head Çarşi guy buys his fish from here for his restaurant. The fish sellers also pointed us in the direction of the Çarşi shop, in the nearby Grand Beşiktaş precinct.

The shop has official merchandise, but they also design their own gear which reflects the Çarşi slogans, which are admired by many and appropriated by supporters of other teams! On match days, the shop opens at 6-7am and has a queue of 300 people outside. The owner said he rarely goes to the matches now (he’s in his 40s), but the president gives him signed shirts as gifts, he knows all the players, transfer gossip and news about the club, and gets called all the time for his point of view.

The owner told us that he and his brother are part of the inner core Çarşi, which meets weekly. We heard the core have a powerful influence, coordinating banners, chants and deciding if support or protests are needed. For instance, after the Izmit earthquake, the Çarşi mobilized and donated hundreds of thousands of units of blood to the Red Crescent (the Turkish Red Cross). Or when TV pundits repeatedly said Beşiktaş was only winning the league because Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe were ‘actively losing’, the Çarşi protested, sending 1 million set-top boxes back to the TV company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87ar%C5%9F%C4%B1_(supporter_group)

Guan Han Ji & Xiao Wang Qi, NanTing village

Guan and Xiao have run their grocery in a backstreet of the village for 25 years now. They live in the rooms behind the shop, but used to live in a house in a neighbouring village until that village was one of the many demolished in 2004 to make way for the construction of eight new university campuses known as Guangzhou's ‘University City’.

Completed within 8 months, University City brought an influx of jobs and money to NanTing. Many new shops and restaurants opened on the outer edges of the village to cater for the huge new student population. Not many students take a walk down Guan and Xiao’s street though, so commerce there has stagnated. Now, the scales are rusty and the shelves are relatively bare; packets of noodles, cigarettes, alcohol, soft drinks, household products are sold to their friends and neighbours. The odd bottle of quality spirits gathers dust. Xiao says before University City, they opened all day every day and had a busy pool hall on the 1st floor. Now she opens up 8am to midday and 5pm to 11pm. Afternoons are spent weeding a local farmer’s fields because she can earn more money that way. Similarly, Guan delivers gas cylinders throughout the village.

They host card games most evenings in front of their shop. Xiao told us they no longer pay for a license to trade and nobody cares to ask, so they carry on regardless. Despite the new prosperity in the village, many locals, like Guan and Xiao, resent the fact they lost their homes without adequate compensation. There is still a refugee camp close by that continues the protest and attempts to prevent the planned destruction of a temple. A friend of ours says that NanTing is threatened too, with plans to build a huge shopping centre on the land.

Primo Mercado & Construction Materials, São Remo, São Paulo

Here stands Diva (short for Divanete). She and her husband Primo run a popular Mercado and construction materials shop in the centre of São Remo. An estimated 3,000 people live in this hillside favela established over 30 years ago, and many people buy from their shop. They sell everything you need to run a household, plus confectionary and stationery. Next door they sell the essentials for building or extending a house, concrete, cement, bricks etc.

They were introduced to us as linchpins in the community by a community worker called Thelma. She shops there and works on a local education programme. Primo was recently President of the town council, following his activism after a tragic mudslide in the favela. During our time at Primo's, Diva took as many photographs of us as we did of her.