Welcome to Gig Buddies Sydney
What is Gig Buddies?
There are two main parts to the Gig Buddies project
​
1. Buddying
Building a one-on-one friendship between a participant and volunteer,
2. Events/Socials
Group social events run by the Gig Buddies team.​
Who is Gig Buddies for?
Who is it for?
A Gig Buddies participant is an adult (18 years and older) with mild to moderate learning disability and/or autism, who wants to make new friends and do fun stuff.
​
A Gig Buddies volunteer is someone who wants to expand their social circles, make friends, support a person with a disability and do fun things.​
Buddying
How "Buddying" works
The Gig Buddies team matches and pairs a volunteer and an adult with a mild to moderate learning disability and/or autism.
​
Buddies are paired based on mutual interests - such as music tastes, sport and hobbies - and other factors such as location and age.
Once paired, buddies go out together once a month for a year (or longer).
​
​
What do buddies do?
Buddied-up participants and volunteers catch up once a month and choose the "gigs" they both want to go to together.
A "gig" is whatever you want it to be.
​
It can be...
opera, theatre, sport, bushwalking, bowling, movies, having dinner, playing pool, surfing, food markets, musical theatre, go cart racing, horse riding, dancing, video games, train spotting, mini golf etc...
​​
click below to watch a video about the Gig buddies project
Testimonials
roll over images below to see what people are saying about the Gig Buddies project.
Just being able to meet someone, where we didn’t have everything in common. It made our conversations exciting as we learnt more things from each other.
It’s been such a special, fulfilling time. Meeting Kieran has bettered me as a person and I learn things from him all the time. We have a lot of fun and it is drama free. Very refreshing when compared to other relationships/areas of life.
I love being with Maddie. It's been so much fun
get involved...
the NDIS
Gig Buddies and the NDIS
The standard monthly charge to support the project is 3 hours per month from Core Support or Capacity Building.
The charge covers; recruiting, vetting, matching & training volunteers to partner with participants to build friendships & attend live music, sport and other events.
The monthly charge also includes access* to the many Gig Buddies hosted online and live activities and events.
(*some events have additional charges)
​
the Gig Buddies project is user-led
Yasmin, Stavros, Lachlan, Joni, Nalyn, Alex, Jack, Audrey and Karen
The Soul Fly Buddies
(Gig Buddies' user-led advisory team)
We are an advisory group of participants set up to oversee and advise the Gig Buddies project. We catch up monthly and help shape the Gig Buddies project going forward.
​
more from Gig Buddies...
