Éco-quartier Peter McGill held its first Café Repair on Saturday, June 29th at Cabot Square.

The weather was perfect, it was comforting to see both the involvement of the restorative volunteers and the enthusiasm of the participants with objects to repair.

It is with zeal and passion that we repaired coffee makers, bread machines, Palm pilot, sandals, coffee grinders, jewelry, umbrellas, baby monitors, lamps, alarm clocks, panini machines, computer keyboards, computers and diving cameras!

Many thanks to Pacifica Café and Shaughnessy Café, who boosted participants’ motivation by offering caffeinated beverages!

The very concept of Repair Café is not new.

The first Repair Café was held in Amsterdam on October 18, 2009. The event proved to be an instant success and since then the concept of “Repair Café” has expanded to all the countries in the world.

Repair Café, a simple idea:

It’s simple. Bring a broken object with you and work with the volunteers at the Repair Café. You will learn how to fix it in a friendly atmosphere!

Often, objects are easy to be fixed. However, sometimes people do not always dare to disassemble them. Some other times they do not possess neither the skills nor knowledge on how to repair them.

Repairing broken objects in group is a teaching technique that helps the individuals to acquire these skills and knowledge. Very often people will realize it wasn’t such a big deal to fix them.

The idea of a Repair Café also helps to combat planned obsolescence.

Programmed obsolescence is the set of techniques by which a marketer aims to deliberately reduce the life of a product in order to increase its replacement rate. In other words, some objects are made to break down within a certain period of time and are designed hardy to repair. 

By exploring the programmed obsolescence theory, you realize that strategies developed by manufacturers are rather deceitful. Furthering your knowledge on this theory, you will surely desire to repair by yourself your belongings. 

In short, the programmed obsolescence theory is real. However, we cannot just blame those manufacturers, we got to organize ourselves and strike back by acquiring the skills and knowledge to fix what is broken! 

Awareness will appear to yourself as a prerequisite when you decide to consume. There are also many quality products in which you can choose to invest if you are ready to use them on the long run.

It is with this in mind that we foster the people’s long-lost knowledge of fixing broken goods with their own hands. To perpetuate the life cycle of our belongings, such as appliances, and meanwhile saving money by repairing them, that’s what a Repair Café is up to! 

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