The idea behind Gig Buddies is that we want to enable people with learning disabilities and/or autism to enjoy all the great things going on in their community, especially live music. Gig Buddies is a project that pairs up people with and without learning disabilities (and/or autism) to be friends and to go to events together. The Gig Buddies project aims to make volunteering easier for people in Sussex by enabling volunteers to go to gigs they’d already probably be going to anyway, but with someone with a learning disability.

This means they’ll be sharing their passions with each other and be able to fit their volunteering around their other commitments.

Gig Buddies people come from all over Sussex, including Brighton and Hove, Worthing, Chichester, Lewes, Uckfield, Eastbourne and Hastings.

https://gigbuddies.org.uk/find-a-gig-buddy/

It's best for link workers to support clients to fill out applications themselves on the website. If someone finds this difficult, Gig Buddies support coordinators can offer some help with this. They can also send out hard copies if this is best for the client.

Not interested in gigs? They can still do buddying and link people up e.g finding a mechanic buddy for someone who is interested in cars, football/sport, coffee shops; "What is their gig?". People can access group support whilst awaiting a buddying match.