no doubt some of you are already quite familiar with these–they might even be a staple in your community already–but for those of you who have not heard of repair cafes before, here’s a concept of how the most organized ones work:
Repair Cafés are free meeting places and they’re all about repairing things (together). In the place where a Repair Café is located, you’ll find tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need. On clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, et cetera. You’ll also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields.
Visitors bring their broken items from home. Together with the specialists they start making their repairs in the Repair Café. It’s an ongoing learning process. If you have nothing to repair, you can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee. Or you can lend a hand with someone else’s repair job. You can also get inspired at the reading table – by leafing through books on repairs and DIY.
the most “formally” organized of these are also frequently affiliated with Repair Café International Foundation, a foundation which exists to promote and advance the concept (they also collaborate with iFixit to produce repair guides). affiliated ones are also very common in Europe, which isn’t surprising since the Foundation is based out of Amsterdam. on non-European continents, these are less frequent and mostly found in larger cities (the site keeps a list with contact information if you’d like to get in touch with one). if you’re in a larger city and looking for a quick and simple way to get involved in something or volunteer a repair skill, you might be able to just check out one near you. if you want to start one affiliated with the Foundation i believe they have a whole kit and process for that detailed on the site.
but the idea of “organizing a space where people can come and get things fixed, help fix things, and learn how to fix things” is also a simple one that transcends any one group and can probably be organized just about anywhere. you don’t have to be affiliated with anyone to make that happen, you just need the people, the tools, and a good scope of what you can offer between those two things. if you and a friend think you can offer literally any kind of basic repair–however humble–to people in your community, however large or small? that’s a good seed to start something like this from.
There’s a local repair cafe that runs once a month near me - I should go next time it’s on, at least to say Hi! There might also be a thing or too I can learn.
How is it similar/different than a community makerspace? I can see those 2 things mixed with a library of things being a very important space!
just going off of name alone (i’m not actually aware of what a makerspace is) i would imagine they have heavy overlap, and could be pretty easily meshed together if need be
A makerspace is a “garage” you pay a membership to join that has all the tools you’d need to make stuff. Laythes, 3d printers, CNC machine, etc.
The library system in my county (US) supports a repair cafe organization - I learned how to replace a three-prong plug :-)
I love this idea! How are they funded, somebody must pay for the location at least right?
it probably depends on the repair cafe and the person organizing since how these manifest can vary a lot. i’d guess for most of them the spaces are public or at least open access in some way that doesn’t involve renting–the one near me is done in a library for example, and with the coordination of the library.
I’ve seen temporary ones in libraries. Like they’re only on certain days but are somewhat regular
Ah dang, I live in Florida and there’s a grand total of 1 here. I’m way too nervous to do something like this, but man, its such a nice idea.
Huh, there’s only one affiliated one in Finland and it’s in a tiny city (Pietarsaari / Jakobstad, pop. ~20k).
I wish I had the energy to start one. Definitely seems like something I’d like to see and be involved in
You could talk with your library. Librarians tend to be super amazing at little start-ups. Just ask if they have something like this and have a couple friends who would be interested ask and they might get the ball rolling or know someone who will.
Ah, that’s a great idea. Some of the bigger libraries around here even have tools (power tools, voltmeters, whatnot) you can check out, so they might actually already have something like this going
These are a great idea. We have one near us, I’ve never been myself but have referred a few other people to them.
Not sure if it’s the same thing, but there’s several DIY bike repair shops. I’m only really familiar with the ones in Toronto, but I know there are plenty elsewhere.
Most of them are open for folks to come in and use the space to repair their bicycles 3 or 4 times a week. Always volunteers around to help out (usually only to give advice though, most of the time it is still on you to do the work). I love visiting them to do minor repairs, though have never been a volunteer (considered it late 2019, but then pandemic started and I backed out).
Their funding is usually donations, any parts you need to use. All of the ones I’ve seen also sell refurbished bikes that the volunteers build outside of the DIY hours. Usually really cheap, since they mostly use donated parts. Not quite as cheap as craigslist, but less likely to be stolen :)
Never thought of a more general space for repairing things. I really like the idea.
We have one of these in town but I haven’t made use of it yet. It gets parts from the council e-waste recycling and the charity shop it shares a building with. I would love to know if they help with appliances as my oven is stuffed and I really need to get it sorted. I bake all our bread and today i waited 2 hours for it to still be underdone 🥲 I ended up finishing it at the playcentre where they have an oven that turns on and has a temperature dial and everything!
Ooo thanks! I found one that’s in my neighbourhood!
oh, fun! if you go you should write about it on here sometime and tell people what it’s like. i think that’d make a good post, personally
