International Repair Day 2023 is fast approaching and we wanted to give you a taster of what’s happening. Whether you organise an event to celebrate the day or you attend a local repair cafe, there is so much to choose from this year. From Belgium and France, to Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand – repairers all over the world are marking the day.
You can access the toolkit for promoting the event here, including materials in multiple languages.
The European Right to Repair campaign is strong as ever, and this Repair Day fixers all over Europe are going to be writing to their politicians and recording video messages at community events. The campaign released a special video on making repair truly for everyone, and is holding a special action outside the EU Parliament in Brussels.
Over 70 repair events are already registered in the UK, hundreds of repair events will be taking place in France, and Repair Café Denmark will be awarding the Danish Repairability Prize on the day. There are events listed in Norway, Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Italy, and we expect to see more pop up in the coming weeks!
In the Netherlands, they’re especially encouraging children to get involved in repair with the premiere of a new kids drama about repair. Over 30 cinemas will be screening the show and holding repair cafes so that children can get an intro to fixing in real time.
In Germany, Round Table Repair Germany and INKOTA together with their partners e.g. Netzwerk Reparatur-Initiativen, will present their petition for a nationwide repair bonus to the Federal Ministry of Environment, so far the petition has over 65,000 signatories. And FixFirst are holding a human vs. AI fixing battle in Berlin.
In Belgium, Repair & Share and Repair Together are highlighting repair in schools, organisations, youth movements, village squares, the heart of cities, libraries, and more. In Wallonia, a repairathon will be held to attempt to fix as many items as possible on the day.
Les 100tinel Fix Club in Porto-Novo, Benin will be holding events in schools to try and fix their resources. And in Uganda, Community Creativity for Development will be running a two day training course for a group of 15 women, who will showcase what they’ve learned at an event for Repair Day. You can help fund this event here, if you are able to donate.
Our friends at Repair Cafe Hudson Valley are busy holding repair cafes up in the North-East of the US, and there are events scattered around the country. In Mexico, Estrategia Circular MX are hosting a circular economy webinar, and Revuelta Club are holding their first repair event in Querétaro, as part of the Club de Reparadores network.
And if you can’t reach any of these events in person, Cherwell Collective are running an online event to reach people in communities who don’t have access to a local repair group. You can engage with fixing online using the Global Fixers Discord server where repairers at international events will be answering your questions about fixing.
Do you have an event planned to mark the day? Add it to our map using this form so that we can see what the repair community is doing across the globe!
[Photos courtesy of Mark A Phillips, and Mathew Lubari]
Michelle Sheather
Repair Workshops and cafes with the organisation that started the first ever repair cafes Australia http://www.bower.org.au
Pieter
See: https://www.facebook.com/repaircafeede
Ugo Vallauri
Fantastic, we love the picture of the cake, wish we could try a slice 🙂 Happy #RepairDay!