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Gig Buddies Celebrate 9th Birthday

Published on: May 2024

Record: HANSARD-1323879322-141606

Gig Buddies Celebrate 9th Birthday

Ms FELICITY WILSON (North Shore)

—Speaker I want to recognise a wonderful local organisation that just recently celebrated their ninth birthday, Gig Buddies. Gig Buddies is an initiative of ACL Disability Services which is a registered not for profit organisation committed to promoting the rights of people with learning disabilities to live the lifestyle of their choosing. Gig Buddies partners volunteers with an adult who experiences mild to moderate autism and/or has a learning disability who wants to make new friends and get out and do fun stuff. So how does the buddying work? The Gig Buddies team matches and pairs a volunteer with a participant based on mutual interests. These could be music tastes, sport, hobbies, but also considers other factors such as location and age. Once paired buddies go out together once a month for a year, and sometimes even longer. I was more than happy to provide Gig Buddies with funding in 2022 so they could purchase an assistance vehicle, and excitingly the new car was named at the birthday celebrations as Gigi. Happy birthday Gig Buddies, and I look forward to joining you all soon to see Gigi in action.