Learn how to fix it at the repair caf
The first Repair Café in the midlands is taking place on Saturday, November 22 in St Kieran’s Community Centre, Tormey Villas, Athlone from 2-5pm.
Bring your small broken items such as jug kettle, stool, bike puncture etc and sit with a repairer who will show you how to mend the item.
There will be repair specialists (electricians, DIY/handyman, seamstress, IT etc) on hand who are voluntarily giving their time to help others by passing on important skills while extending the life of many items and preventing them going to landfill.
This event is being organised by Westmeath County Council, Athlone Tidy Towns and Midlands Makerspace group with the support of the Repair Café Netherlands Foundation. All three groups are uniting to host this event.
Shay Hamilton of Athlone Tidy Towns stated “this event promotes sustainable living as it is teaching people how to change their mindset and change a broken item into an item whose life has been extended for longer thus preventing waste – it will help us to “re-think” what is really waste and what is not”.
Bianca Fachel of Midlands Makerspace stated that “we are a creative community who want to develop and share our knowledge and skills, working with all the people of Athlone and the wider area – we have diverse backgrounds and interests but want to work on an inspiring project such as this that will benefit and empower the wider community”.
The Repair Café originated in Amsterdam in 2009 and this is the first to be held in the midlands area. The goals of a Repair Café are to bring back repairing into the community in a modern way, to maintain repair expertise and to spread the knowledge. Ruth Maxwell, Environment Dept stated “western society revolves around consumption – we rarely consider repairing a stool or mending a jumper but there are many people who have valuable practical knowledge that could be passed on and this is what Saturday 22nd Nov is all about. I am very grateful to the committee of St.Kieran’s Community Centre who have allowed us to hold the event in their community centre”.
The event is free to attend so bring along small items and give them a new life while learning a skill along the way.
If you would like to volunteer your knowledge & time for the Repair Café then contact Ruth Maxwell 044 93 32125 or email rmaxwell@westmeathcoco.ie
For more information on Repair Cafés see www.repaircafe.org