A plan to create a revolution of community in our universities
Below is an article I wrote for the National Union of Students trade magazine. It followed an experience I’d had in taking my son to university last year.
He missed freshers week through Covid and struggled for the first few weeks as he sought to make new friends.
It got me thinking about how many young people must go through similar experiences and how a model such as our Gig Buddies would make total sense. Not just for those students with additional support needs or who are neurodiverse but also for those struggling to make new friends or find this problematic. It is after all a massive step for young people to go through.
I’ve always said that Gig Buddies — creating new friendships through a shared interest — could work for any marginalised group in our society.
It may be that such a scheme already exists in our universities, and they do lots to support students with their mental well-being. However, this could be a way to not only do this but also create community and improve the experience for everyone.
Incidentally, I did get approached by one university that wanted to adopt the idea but stopped when I mentioned there’s a cost. Nothing is stopping them from going ahead (although Gig Buddies is Trademarked!), but we have to charge for our time to share our expertise.
Anyway, here’s the article, and do get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how we share Gig Buddies.
Gig Buddies — win/win volunteering
Gig Buddies is a volunteer befriending project that matches up socially isolated people with learning disabilities and autistic people with a volunteer who shares the same cultural interests and passions. The aim is to support socially isolated people to develop new friendships and widen their informal support networks.
Our charity Stay Up Late started the project in 2013.
Here Paul Richards, founder and executive director of the charity, talks more about how the project works, the punk roots of the charity and how they’re trying to change communities for the better one gig at a time.
Why the right to be able to Stay Up Late is important
The roots of our charity started with the punk band ‘Heavy Load’ back in the 1990s. Three of the band had learning disabilities, and I was the bass player.
We had a reputation for our wild and often chaotic live sets and would play at disability club nights around the UK. Always at 9 pm, the same thing would happen, half the audience would leave. Why did they leave? Because their support staff weren’t able to work past 10 pm due to inflexible support systems. We got fed up with this and decided to do something about it, starting the Stay Up Late Campaign — calling for flexibility so people could stay to the end of gigs and make choices about how they spent their time.
At the same time, we were also the subjects of the feature-length documentary ‘Heavy Load’, which meant our campaign got out to a vast audience as the film was on the BBC, US TV, cinemas and international film festivals.
(Film critic Mark Kermode not only made the movie ‘film of the week’ on BBC 5 Live but also cites it as one of his five favourite rockumentaries of the 21st century!)
We went on to do some incredible things we never dreamt of, including playing Glastonbury, New York, a squat in Copenhagen and writing the theme tune for the Channel 4 drama series Cast Offs. However, we couldn’t go on forever, and in 2012 we created the charity Stay Up Late to continue the work we’d started.
As a charity, we continued with our campaigning work but also started Gig Buddies, a volunteer befriending project that uniquely used a shared cultural interest to be the foundation for building new friendships.
Gig Buddies — volunteering made easier
The idea behind Gig Buddies was straightforward, matching someone who is lonely and socially isolated with a volunteer who shares the same passions and interests. Many events are designed specifically for people with learning disabilities; we’re not against these. Still, if they are the only thing on offer, it becomes a form of segregation, even if the initial intention is well-meaning. The idea behind Gig Buddies is to make all events open to everyone and for people to do whatever their ‘gig’ is, whether that’s live music, clubbing, watching football, seeing a play or going for a walk in the countryside.
All volunteers are trained and receive ongoing support, and we ask for at least a year’s commitment.
We started the Gig Buddies project in Brighton and Hove in 2013 and soon expanded it across Sussex; such was the demand. However, a meeting with the CEO of an organisation from Sydney made us realise that our work was unique and there was a demand for sharing it in other places. Now we have two projects in Australia and in 17 locations around the UK to start their own Gig Buddies projects. By networking and collaborating with like-minded organisations, we’re also creating a movement for positive change, with many more people having active social lives than we could have dreamt.
Obstacles to getting out
Before starting our project, we wanted to learn what obstacles people with learning disabilities faced in getting out in the evening and worked with a researcher from the University of Brighton to discover what these were. They were around practical issues such as a lack of funded support, access to public transport, community safety concerns and lack of accessible information about what was on. But other obstacles were around lack of confidence, not having anyone to go with and a lack of motivation.
Of course, we should also add Covid to this list and the effect it’s had on shaking peoples’ confidence to be part of community life in a safe way.
We also found that there was a genuine desire to get out!
Gig Buddies in universities?
One of my sons found his first few weeks at university hard. Due to Covid, he missed freshers week and worried he’d not meet anyone. It got me thinking that there must not only be a lot of students with additional support needs but also ones who want to meet other people and are struggling to adapt to university life. So I started to wonder, ‘how could Gig Buddies work in universities?’
Could a project work that:
- Supported socially isolated students and students with additional support needs to find social networks and friendships.
- Provide volunteering opportunities for students by matching them up with fellow students or people with learning disabilities from the local community.
It would be a project that enriched everyone’s lives who was involved. I’d love to know if similar projects exist or if Student Unions would like to work with us.
It got me excited to think of the possibilities that could be possible. Please get in touch if you share my excitement and want to talk more about this.
Paul Richards, Executive Director/Founder Stay Up Late