Share Friends - Making Friends... Changing Lives

Making friends

For some people, making friends is not easy. Being a Share-Friends' volunteer helps making friends an easier task for adults with learning and physical disabilities.

Share-Friends recruits volunteers from all sectors of the community. The friendship provides the chance for someone with a disability to make new friends and get out into the community to do hobbies and social interests of their choice.

Changing lives

Becoming a volunteer with Share-Friends is life changing. It provides choices for disabled adults to make changes to their lifestyle, and helps them become more confident and have greater self-esteem.

The change not only affects the disabled friend but also you, the volunteer. You will become more informed about disability and diversity in our society. You may learn a new skill or visit a new exciting venue. Also becoming a Share-Friends' volunteer can give you a range of different opportunities:

• learning and experiencing new hobbies and interests
• gaining a formal volunteering qualification
• learning about disability
• giving back to the community
• doing a variety of social and leisure activities
• making new friends.

A perfect example

Derek, one of our volunteers, has been with us for over 2 years.

"With a lot of free time after retiring I wanted to give back to my local community and having experienced disability myself and seen how isolating it can be, I wanted to support someone else in a similar situation."

Derek was matched with Neil who didn't get to see many people during the week so was glad of the chance to make a new friend.

Neil says "having Derek visit me each week is soul saving. We have different opinions, football teams and political views but we get on like a house on fire. He makes life much more bearable."

For more information

For more information please use the links or contact us: