Repair Cafés are free meeting places that focus on repairing things. Visitors bring their broken items from home and together with specialists such as bike mechanics, woodworkers and fabric repairers, they begin fixing. It’s an ongoing learning process with wonderful environmental and social benefits.
There are over 1000 Repair Cafés around the world with a growing number in Australia, including approximately 25 in Victoria. The Albury-Wodonga Repair Cafe was Victoria’s first and is by far its biggest. At each session we have almost 20 people helping out, including about a dozen volunteer repairers. We boast an 80% success rate with our repairs and will have a go at fixing the following:
- Furniture/woodwork
- Battery-operated appliances
- Clothing/textiles
- Bicycles
- Jewellery (costume and fine jewellery, on selected dates)
We’ll even help you sharpen your small garden tools e.g. secateurs, shears. And, if you have a broken guitar, please get in touch and we’ll put you on our waiting list for occasions when we have a guitar repairer on site to help out.
We operate from 10.00am-1.00pm on the first Saturday of the month at the Wodonga Senior Citizens Centre, 15 Havelock St, Wodonga (next to The Cube and Library). Please note we are not a pick up and drop-off repair service – we want visitors to get involved and learn from the repair process.
For photos and more information visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/repaircafeaw
Repair Cafe Albury-Wodonga is proudly supported by Halve Waste, with morning patisseries kindly donated by Kooka Brotha’s.
For more information about this world-wide initiative see: http://repaircafe.org
This youtube clip is also worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmmLRVkDZbk
Why a Repair Café?
We throw away vast amounts of stuff. Even things with almost nothing wrong that could get a new lease on life after a simple repair. The trouble is most people don’t know how to repair things and there are few commercial outlets specialising in repairs. People who attempt to get electrical appliances fixed are often told it’s cheaper to buy a new one. A Repair Café changes all that. Valuable practical knowledge gets passed on. Things are used for longer and don’t have to be thrown away. This reduces the energy needed to make new products and transport them, cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It also reduces the volume of raw materials being mined for new goods and minimises pressure on landfill.
As well as environmental benefits, Repair Cafés have social benefits similar to Men’s Sheds, including improved social cohesion, increased participation and enhanced opportunities for positive inter-generational interactions. Plus, of course, communities re-learn the lost art of fixing things.
How can you help?
If you would like to volunteer as a repairer or to join our working group, please get in touch.
Other local repair options
See our list of professional repairers for electronics and electrical; clothing and textiles; furniture, woodwork and leather; and bicycle repairs in Albury-Wodonga.
