A GROUP of volunteers will be bringing broken toys, jewellery and electrical items back to life free of charge at the monthly Repair Café meeting at Barry Library on Saturday morning.
Members of the public are invited to the library between 10am and 1pm where a group of around nine volunteers with varying areas of expertise will attempt to restore broken items.
The international repair café movement was initiated by Dutch environmentalist and former journalist Martine Postma. After she had her second child, Martine started to notice how many things people threw away instead of trying to fix, so she decided to start a project to tackle it. This became the first Repair Café which opened in Amsterdam in 2009.
Martine then set up the Repair Café International Foundation and there are now more than 1,500 Repair Cafés worldwide.
Repair Café Wales was founded by Joe O’Mahoney and Cerys Jones in April 2017. Around four years ago, the concept reached the Vale when Kevin Hart was looking for a new voluntary project to become involved with, and with the help of his wife Jo they set up monthly Repair Café workshops in Llantwit Major and Cowbridge, before extending it to Barry around 18 months ago.
At each Repair Café event, members of the public bring their damaged or broken items including electrical goods, technology, ornaments, clothes, bicycles and jewellery. People are welcome to bring all items along, except for microwaves, which they cannot attempt to repair for safety reasons.
Jo says that the monthly meetings in Barry are always enjoyable occasions: “It really is a wonderful way of bringing the community together. People come along for a coffee and some cake, and we never know what broken items they’ll bring. It can be a vacuum cleaner that’s been in the family for generations, a toaster that no longer pops up, computers that aren’t working as they should or a favourite children’s toy.
“I’d estimate that we have about a 75% success rate of mending things. We’ve got nine regular volunteers and sometimes we have as many as 11 volunteers.
“It’s very rewarding for us to see how happy people are when we manage to fix their item, whether it’s a practical piece of equipment or a sentimental item that means something important to them.”
Repair Café Wales is a not-for-profit organisation, and while the service is free, people can make a voluntary cash donation to help cover their overheads, though Jo insists that people need not feel under any obligation to do so.
Jo believes that the younger generation have a good understanding of the environmental impact of consumer waste: “I’m in my late 50s now and when I was a child there was very much an attitude of mend and make do. Worn-out shoes would be taken to the cobblers and repaired, holes in socks would be sewn up, and it extended to other areas as well. Pop bottles and beer bottles were made of glass and taken back to the shop.
“Almost everyone had milk delivered in those days, and you’d put your empty glass bottles out for collection and they’d be reused time and time again. The milkman played an important role in the community, because if milk was left on the doorstep from the previous day, they’d know something was wrong and they could get help.
“Gradually, we became a throwaway society, with plastic bottles, plastic bags and cheap consumer goods becoming the norm. The culture shifted towards throwing things away and buying new, but this had a terrible impact in terms of landfill and plastic pollution.
“There’s also a great sense of fun and satisfaction in giving an old item a new lease of life, and it’s wonderful that the Barry community has embraced the Repair Café concept with such enthusiasm.”
The Repair Café also provides an important role in helping children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Jo said: “Children with ASD can become very attached to certain toys and other items, so when they stop working, or even if they become separated from them, they can become very distressed and unhappy.
“It’s lovely when our volunteers are able to repair their favourite items, and we can also see how much it means to their parents and carers.”
Jo explained that some of the stories behind the items people bring are extraordinary: “Of all the things that have been brought in over the last 18 months, one item in particular stands out in my mind.
“A lady in her 70s turned up with a doll that she’d had since she was three years old. When she was still a little girl, one of its legs became broken, and her grandmother wanted to throw it away because it was dangerous.
“The lady hid the doll and she’d kept it for all these years. She brought it along to the Repair Café one day and she asked us to take a look. We weren’t able to fix it there and then, but my daughter and husband 3D modelled a new leg for the doll.
“The lady was crying over the phone even before we showed her the doll, it really meant a huge amount to her, and she’d kept it for almost her whole life.
“There are lots of things in volunteering for the organisation that make it worthwhile, but beautiful moments like that stay with you and are very special,” she said.
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