New charity launched to support adults with learning disabilities to enjoy an active night life

Stay Up Late Scotland Campaign advocates for people with learning disabilities to enjoy fulfilling social lives, including staying out late for events and activities.

The charity has been in development since 2018 and is a continuation of the development of UK charity Stay Up Late. Without the charity its common that people in the crowd at gigs who had learning difficulties would often need to leave early due to carers finishing shifts by 10pm.

Stay Up Late was created as a befriending project allowing people with learning difficulties to stay out late, enjoy gigs, concerts, club nights and other events by matching them with a volunteer who could serve as a ‘Gig Buddy’.

The Scottish team are a broad collection of people and organisations who support and advocate for this vision, we have campaigned and organise events across Scotland , made particularly challenging during Covid “lockdown”, when all their energy and resources switched to creating an online platform enabling those with a disability in Scotland, and beyond, to stay up late.

A spokesperson for Stay Up Late Scotland said: “We have established a National Committee for Stay Up Late Scotland, to provide a structure and momentum for this work, there are also local groups that currently meet in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

“Our “Stay Up Later’s” have been given the confidence to go to festivals , nightclubs, gigs , bowling and many other social events that those without a disability attend with ease, with the right support to do what they want, to get out and have fun.”

Further information can be found the Stay Up Late Scotland website. Click here to find out more.