John Westra started his own Repair Café in Amsterdam two years ago. The Repair Café Foundation starter kit was essential. “I don’t want to reinvent the wheel”, says John. Thanks to the practical information and tips in the starter kit, he didn’t have to.
John decided to start a Repair Café after his trolley case, and a coffee machine broke. He was about to replace them, but that didn’t sit well with him. “I wasn’t raised that way, so I started to repair them myself. While googling, I came across the Repair Cafés.”
He first visited some Repair Cafés in Amsterdam. He liked that so much that he started a Repair Café himself, as there wasn’t one in his neighbourhood yet. But how do you get something like that off the ground?
Ready-to-use solution
That’s where Repair Café’s digital starter kit helped. John knew about making repairs, but there’s more to opening one’s own Repair Café. “You can start something, but how do you get the word out? How do you get people to come?”
The starter kit contains ready-to-use answers and solutions to such questions. John: “You get a logo; it has standard forms; you can make posters and flyers. For me, I needed not to have to spend all that much time thinking about that.”
A detailed manual
Besides logos and other documents, the starter kit also contains a detailed manual on how to start a Repair Café. Martine Postma, the creator of the Repair Cafés, says: “It answers all the questions you may have, such as how to find a venue and how to collect the necessary tools. Suppose you want to open your Repair Café in a couple of months, then the manual will tell you what can and must already do and how to do it”.
Order the starter kit
Would you also like to start a Repair Café? Then order the digital starter kit now.
A lot of people have preceded you: there are hundreds of Repair Cafés in English speaking countries alone. They also started from scratch, but you’re already halfway there with the Repair Café starter kit.
John Westra (standing, on the left) is happy with his own Repair Café
I dont need your starting package. I only want you to publish my repair cafe shop adress. The rest i can do by myself. Thats even the idea of a rapair cafe!
Dear Soenke, the idea of Repair Cafe is that people can benefit from other people’s skills and experience, so that they don’t have to invent the wheel all by themselves. The Repair Cafe starter kit provides lots of ready-made materials that can help you smoothen proceedings in your Repair Cafe. Even if you can do everything yourself, we still advise you to take a look at the starter kit. Good luck!
Hi Jessika,
I’m Mathew Lubari, a South Sudanese refugee in Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement in Uganda, Founder and Team Leader for Community Creativity For Development, a refugee Youth(South Sudanese) founded and led a Community Based Organisation.
Our initiative focuses on environmental protection through advocacy on repair and reuse of electronics including training on digital literacy
We plan to establish 3 repair Cafe’s Centers in the refugee camp but lack funds.
Wondering if you could support us.