UWE Bristol’s Repair Café has gotten off to a great start on its very first session on October 11th 2023!
We had a fantastic team of 14 helpers, which included students, community volunteers, technicians, and other UWE staff, helping with repair and general organising.
There was a lot of demand for repair amongst the UWE community: people brought in old toys, soda streams, lawn mowers, lamps, trousers, skirts, dresses, and much more!
In total, our repairers managed to work on 16 items, of which 10 were fixed, 3 are still outstanding (waiting for spare parts, or ran out of time to finish), and 3 could not be repaired.
So far, the repairers helped save 11kg of waste from going to landfill, and 67kg of CO2 emissions, which is the equivalent of manufacturing 1 sofa, or watching TV for 116 days!
All repair data is collected in support of the work of the Restart project. Our latest repair information can be accessed on their webpages. We are able to run the Repair Café through the MAKERS project, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Radio mentions
We are delighted to have had two mentions on BBC Radio Bristol to mark the launch of the Repair Café. First, project lead Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers was interviewed by Paris Troy as part of the station’s morning show to talk about the Repair Café and the wider repair movement.
We also had BBC Radio Bristol’s Steve Yabsley attend the Repair Café in person, where he interviewed many of the people who helped or had their items fixed.
Upcoming Repair Cafes and how to get involved
The next Repair Café will take place on November 8th 2023 at the School of Engineering from 12.15 – 1.45pm.
The November Repair Café will also receive additional support from UWE Bristol’s Fashion Technical team who will be running a MEND session with information below.
You can just drop in on the day, or email kat.corbett@uwe.ac.uk if you have any questions.