Social Enterprise Spotlight – Buggy Buds CIC

Posted: 24 February 2021, in News

Our newest Social Enterprise Spotlight is Sophie Oxley and Buggy Buds CIC. Buggy Buds connects parents in Scotland for 1:1 Buggy Walks in local parks and public spaces. Their mission is to help parents make friends and build communities. Read and share their Q&A interview below! Get in contact with Sophie on sophie@buggybuds.com.


What’s your social and/or environmental mission?
Our mission is to help all parents make friends and build communities by creating opportunities for parents to connect and increasing accessibility to informal support.

How do you do it? (client group, practical daily work, customers etc)
We started out by connecting parents in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen for 1:1 walks, as allowed by the current Coronavirus restrictions. However,  we’ve now expanded our offering to also include parents groups, virtual meet-ups and clubs! All our members fill in a short questionnaire to help us connect them up with like-minded parents near them.

What’s your personal motivation for being a social entrepreneur?
I had a baby myself in lockdown and despite all my best efforts to talk myself through those early days, I found parenthood really lonely. It wasn’t until I tried to ‘build a village’ that I realised how critical friendships are for building confidence. So my motivation stems from making the positives of my experience more accessible to all parents.

What are your current projects?
We’re currently focusing on building our communities in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Above looking at how we grow membership numbers, we’re working hard to create new ways for our members to connect through classes, meet-ups and beyond! There’s a lot of pasta being thrown at the wall (not all of it sticks!) but it’s very exciting.

What exciting things do you have coming up?
We have our first class coming up which should be fun! We’re also launching a virtual membership so parents from every chilly corner of Scotland can get amongst the action and activities on offer!

Who do you want to work with more?
We’re actively looking for organisations to partner with who can help us reach parents feeling isolated and/or excluded from informal support networks. We’d like to offer these parents funded memberships – so if you’re working with parents who fit that category let us know! We’d also love to hear from anyone interested in running a virtual event with us.

What’s your biggest challenge?
At the moment our biggest challenge is finding creative ways to reach and engage parents in the absence of group meet-ups and being able to physically see each other. We’re all looking forward to the day where we can put our babies on a mat and have a cup of tea together!

What top tips would you give to other social enterprises?
Collaborate! Don’t be too proud to enlist the help of other organisations who are also playing in the same sandpit as you. They might become a great partner in helping you achieve your mission and no doubt, will have a raft of knowledge to exchange!