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The very first International Repair Day

Last Saturday, on the 21st October, we celebrated the first ever International Repair Day, which will fall on the third Saturday of October every year from now on. We’re just getting started, and next year will be much bigger, including government, businesses, and media. This event hinted at the potential for a truly massive, global mobilisation for repair on 20 October, 2018.

We counted over 65 events all over the world where people got together to fix their broken things or lend a hand to someone else. The global effort was boosted by a great concentration of Repair Cafes in Europe. You can see a map of locations on the Open Repair Alliance site.

We also had people spontaneously share DIY repairs with us and repair businesses from the desert US, to Iran and Nigeria shared their work.

In London, we held Restart Parties in Tooting and in Leytonstone.

Julie and Philip fixing a kettle in #leytonstone on international #repair day

A post shared by The Restart Project (@restartproject) on

As always, not every repair was successful… But even if you don’t go home with a fixed item, at least you’ve got a diagnosis, and more importantly – new repair skills.

Leicester Fixers attended Creat-A-Con, an event to get young people into STEM, and drew in some young repairers

In the UK, Repair Cafes occurred in Bristol, Exeter, Manchester, Winscombe, and York (just their second!)

Further afield, Restarters Barcelona were very busy getting through a toaster, an electric toothrbush, and a kitchen robot – among other things

Iranian fixers took to their workshops:

#RepairDay !

A post shared by Let’s repa.ir ! (@repa_ir) on

In Argentina, the Club de Reparadores declared: “We will not take ‘broken’ as an answer!” They supported friends across the river in Montevideo, Uruguay to run a community event.

¡FELIZ DÍA INTERNACIONAL DE LA REPARACIÓN! Hoy, y todos los terceros sábados de octubre, celebramos el Día Internacional de la Reparación! ️ Los invitamos a sumarse a esta celebración anual que busca generar conciencia sobre la importancia de la reparación frente a la cultura de lo descartable en un planeta de recursos finitos. ¿Cómo? – Compartiendo una historia de reparación (exitosa o no!) en redes sociales con el hashtag #RepairDay #DiadelaReparación y sacando una foto con el póster que pueden encontrar en este link: https://goo.gl/wxYquC – Asistiendo a uno de los 36 eventos de reparación colectiva que habrá en paralelo en todo el mundo: https://goo.gl/EQRCN2 – Sumándote como voluntario a futuros eventos de reparación: https://reparadores.club/sumate/ – ¡Compartiendo este post!

A post shared by ClubDeReparadores (@clubdereparadores) on

 

In California, the Fixit Clinic popped up in Huntington Public Library:

iFixit in the U.S. put together a great list of ways to participate – and even sticking to electronics repair, they don’t all involve getting out a screwdriver.

People celebrated repair day in all kinds of ways – from fixing broken surfboards to darning socks – or even just paying tribute to an old, well-loved item that has hung on through the years:

Got to use this bit of history today! #arblife #stihl #runslikeadream #firewood #repairday

A post shared by Ron Bowes-Taylor (@rbowestaylor) on


And people didn’t just head to their local community repair event… repairs happened (literally) all over the shop

One response

  1. […] FixFest, that brought together community repair initiatives from across the globe. Attendees launched an International Day of Repair (to be marked every October) and created a new Open Repair Alliance to help push manufacturers and […]

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