Meet the Yorkshirewoman who has built huge 'kind girl community' on Instagram

A globe-trotting Yorkshirewoman has created a ‘kind girl community’ of more than 60,000 like-minded people.
Lydia Leyland's We Got You Boo is a community led through experience and connection that brings isolated women together to make new friends.Lydia Leyland's We Got You Boo is a community led through experience and connection that brings isolated women together to make new friends.
Lydia Leyland's We Got You Boo is a community led through experience and connection that brings isolated women together to make new friends.

Lydia Leyland, who is originally from Leeds, has founded We Got You Boo, which brings together women aged between 20 and 40 at events across the country like dinners, picnics, walks and cocktail making masterclasses.

She spent eight years travelling the world full-time whilst working as the Community Marketing Manager for Sweaty Betty, followed by being the Marketing Lead for a US-based eCommerce company.

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She came up with the concept of a community to build female friendship groups in 2019 while living in South Africa and has since grown the We Got You Boo Instagram page to more than 62,000 followers.

Lydia is originally from LeedsLydia is originally from Leeds
Lydia is originally from Leeds

Lydia has recently registered We Got You Boo as a private limited company based in Halifax with paying members asked for a one-off £49 to join the official group. Of that £4 goes to female-focused charities that support and educate young, vulnerable girls in Africa.

She said: “My life’s mission is simple: to support other women in living their happiest lives surrounded by great friends.

"When I’m not working on building this amazing community, you’ll find me hiking up mountains, hunting down the best foodie spots around the world, and enjoying all of the biggest adventures with friends and my husband.”

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A recent report by the thinktank Onward revealed that around 20 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds had one, or no, close friends – triple the number in 2012- and declaring a ‘friendship recession’ in the UK.

Lydia said that situation makes the We Got You Boo ethos even more essential than initially set out.

One woman who has joined the community said: “Being part of this community makes me feel like I have forever-kind-of-girlfriends from all walks of life.

"It gives me a sense of security, knowing even if I am alone and new in a big city, I can always text/call someone from WGYB and I’ll undoubtedly feel the support of a group of women.”

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Since the start of the year We Got You Boo have sold-out almost every one of their in-person events, with their most recent selling out in just nine-minutes.

Onward’s research suggested suggesting the pandemic may be contributing to an “epidemic of loneliness” among young people.

The research found that it is younger rather than older people who are struggling to build and maintain friendship groups.

The report said: “In 2021, one in five (21 per cent) of 18-34 year-olds report having one or fewer close friends, compared to 19 per cent for the entire population and 11 per cent for over 55s.

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"This represents a reversal since 2011/12, when 7 per cent of 18-34s had one or fewer close friends, compared to 11 per cent for the entire population and 17 per cent of over-55s. This suggests that, whereas young people were half as likely to have limited close social networks as older groups a decade ago, they are now twice as.”

It added: “Older generations are now considerably more likely to have very large close social networks than younger generations. In our survey, we found that over-65s today are nearly three times as likely (41%) to say they have six or more close friends than under-25s (14%) and twice as likely (16 per cent) to say they have ten or more close friends as under-25s (9 per cent).”

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