Loop: Supporting Loneliness Awareness Week 2026

Guest blog by Loop, a platform designed to help people connect through real-life meet-ups. Loop supports both 1:1 and group activities, making it easier for people to discover events, meet others and feel more confident showing up.

Loneliness Awareness Week (15th–21st June) led by Marmalade Trust, is a national campaign focused on reducing stigma, encouraging open conversations around loneliness and helping people feel more connected through community-led activity.

Now in its 10th year, this year’s theme, “Giving Loneliness A Voice”, continues that focus. It’s about recognising that loneliness is something many of us experience at different points in our lives and that getting together and talking about it can make a huge positive difference.

At Loop, we’re really pleased to be supporting the campaign for the second year running.

For me, it's personal. Like a lot of people, I’ve gone through periods where it wasn’t easy to build new connections, whether that was at university, after a relationship breakdown, or through transient job roles, moving to unfamiliar parts of the country where I had no local friendship or support network. It’s not always a lack of opportunity, but that first step that can feel harder than it should.

Making it easier to take part

Loneliness Awareness Week brings together thousands of events across the UK, from local meet-ups and walks to talks, workshops and social activities.

The Connections Map, on Loneliness Awareness Week’s website, makes it easy to find what’s happening nearby.

What we’re trying to do with Loop is help make the next step a bit easier, both for organisers (to better manage their event), and attendees (to feel comfortable and confident to turn up and take part).

Supporting connection in a practical way

Loop is normally focused on helping people meet in real life through spontaneous, shared, 1:1 activities, happening within the next 3 hours.

But as we got closer to this year’s campaign, it felt like a natural fit to get more involved. As part of this, we’ve expanded Loop to now support larger group meet-ups, which naturally includes a group chat function.

For organisers, it means having a straightforward way to communicate with attendees, share updates and manage everything in one place.

For attendees, it means being able to see who’s going, connect beforehand, ask questions and get a better sense of what to expect before turning up.

We’ve also introduced simple engagement features, including easy sharing across email, WhatsApp and social media to help raise awareness and boost attendance, along with Loop Likes and badges that recognise people for hosting and attending events.

We’ve also made it easy for organisers to bring their event into Loop directly from the Connections Map, without needing to input everything again.

A small shift that can make a difference

For many people, the barrier to attending events isn’t interest, it’s uncertainty.

Not knowing who else will be there, what it’ll be like, or how it will feel can be enough to stop someone from going.Sometimes, reducing that uncertainty, even slightly, is all it takes and that's where Loop really can make a big difference.

For the duration of the campaign, events will also stay visible on Loop for longer than usual, giving organisers more time to build awareness and helping more people discover what’s happening.

Beyond the campaign

The changes we’ve introduced have been shaped around Loneliness Awareness Week, but they won’t stop there.

They’ll continue beyond the campaign to improve the experience for all Loop users, making it easy to host or join both 1:1 and group activities.

And for those taking part in Loneliness Awareness Week, Loop can also be used more broadly, whether that’s hosting your own meet-up, joining something else nearby, or simply connecting with other like-minded people in your area.

Taking that first step

Loneliness Awareness Week is about creating opportunities to connect, even if it’s showing up to just one event, meeting just one person, or just trying something new. Sometimes, just these small steps can have a huge impact and change lives.

Getting involved

To post your event on Loop, first add it to the Connections Map on The Loneliness Awareness Week website, a member of your team can then create a free Loop account (via the link below) and simply paste your Connections Map link into Loop - it’s that easy.

If you’re attending, you can download Loop and create a free account at https://loopmeetups.com/download  to discover Loneliness Awareness Week events near you, connect with others beforehand and use the app more widely to host or join other local activities.