Building a new economy, one repair at a time

This week the Transition Network‘s Reconomy Project featured us along with 19 other fantastic projects in their newly published report: “The New Economy in 20 Enterprises”.

We were delighted to be selected among such inspiring innovators striving to invent new meaningful local economies: reskilling and creating jobs in our communities, while developing much needed services and products truly respectful of the environment. As the Transition Town movement has been advocating for a long time, achieving real change in our communities also requires creating new livelihoods for people, in food production as well as in transport services, renewable energy and retail.

Where do we fit in this picture? Repair and reuse of small electrical and electronics have been neglected for a long time, replaced by a throw-away culture and often wasteful recycling. In just over a year, with almost no funding and no paid staff members, we have demonstrated that a different approach in not only possible, but it is necessary and a lot of fun too.

Everyone attending a Restart Party wants to come back for more, learn additional skills and help others save devices from going to waste. Every week we provide support and guidance for new groups who wants to start-up, all over the UK, as well in Italy, Canada, New Zealand and other places. We are receiving offers to collaborate from retired engineers and electricians, students, green activists as well as very “normal” people, happy that someone is representing their frustrated voice, and pragmatically creating an alternative.

We sincerely  hope that the visibility and recognition we are now receiving will help us gain the support and funding we need to grow as an organisation, start paying a couple of staff members to multiply our impact and work with others to change the way we approach waste. We envision a world where much less goes to waste, many more people can learn repair and reuse skills, generating local repair jobs and opportunities in their communities. And we need your help and support to get there. Get in touch if you’d like to help us!