Repair Cafes: Fixing the Throwaway Culture
In a world dominated by disposable goods and planned obsolescence, a grassroots movement is gaining momentum, aiming to breathe new life into broken items and challenge our throwaway culture. Welcome to the world of Repair Cafes.
The Repair Cafe Movement
Repair Cafes are free meeting places where people gather to fix broken household items together. The concept was initiated by Martine Postma in Amsterdam in 2009, and has since spread globally. These events bring together volunteer experts with various skills - from electricians and seamstresses to IT specialists and carpenters - who help visitors repair their broken possessions.
The philosophy behind Repair Cafes is simple yet powerful: promote repairing over replacing, reduce waste, and foster a sense of community. By teaching people how to fix things, these cafes empower individuals to extend the lifespan of their belongings, save money, and reduce their environmental impact.
Stroud Repair & Eco Cafe
Stroud Repair Cafe has taken place monthly since 2016. Initially at Atelier in Lower Street, but since September 2022 here at Trinity Rooms. We hope we can grow the event by attracting even more people in our community to come along to make repairs and/or to eat with us in our community cafe (same set up to our very popular Friday lunch Cafe).
We have recently decided to host Stroud Repair Cafe on the last Sunday (we used to run them on Saturdays) in the month (with December and August as exceptions). We hope that these Sunday Repair Cafes will become community spaces where we can meet, repair and eat together.
Repair Cafes in Gloucestershire
Stroud Repair and Eco cafe is part of a bigger movement locally through Transition Stroud with other repair initiatives like Nailsworth Repair Cafe, but also linked to other Social Repair initiatives across Gloucestershire.
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