On 24^th March 2019, Sustainable Skerries held the first Skerries Repair Café.

Background

Repair Cafés have sprung up all over the world, and are operating in communities from Denmark to Australia. They were founded in response to the fact that too many items of daily life are not repaired anymore and have become disposable, often after short usage. The skills to fix things are in danger of being lost in the face of our convenience, built in obsolescence culture. We throw away too much, we should re-learn how to fix things. Repairing extends the life span of our possessions, reduces waste and saves money.

Repair Cafés endeavour to facilitate a transfer of skills. Members of the repair community are teaching others how to fix things. The emphasis is on the skills transfer, not on the repair only.

The first Skerries Repair Café

We decided to concentrate on clothes, as our obsession with fast fashion means that about 225,000 tones of textile waste are disposed of each year in Ireland alone.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, ten workstations were set up in the Bus Bar, each volunteer laying out their materials and tools. Tea, coffee and homemade cakes were ready. Already, a lot of information exchange and lively chat was taking place. Come 3pm, a steady stream of people dropped in to get advice and/or see what was going on. The volunteers were kept busy showing people how to hem school trousers, mend old pyjamas, fix teddy bears, embellish a pair of jeans or upcycle a second hand dress. Everybody enjoyed the experience and many participants were asking when the next event would take place.

Thanks

We would like to sincerely thank all our volunteers who made this event happen, the Bus Bar who provided the venue and Friends of Autism & ADHD who donated a bag of clothes for our use.

Future Plans

Sustainable Skerries are planning to regularly hold such events, each one concentrating on a different skill. Please contact us at sustskerries@yahoo.ie and let us know what repair skills you would like to learn and what skills you would be willing to share.