Repair café

How it works

An initiative run by students, technicians, staff, community volunteers and industry helpers who work together to repair items brought in by the community for free.

The repair café promotes skill-sharing by pairing less experienced repairers with more experienced ones in a community of practice.

It is part of the wider Bristol Repair Café movement and collaborates with other local repair initiatives, like the Repairium at the SPARKS Bristol Global Goals Centre.

Items that can be repaired include:

• textiles
• electronics
• glasses
• toys
• plus other household goods.

Repair café opening times

When: Monthly – every second Wednesday of the month during term time only

Where: Z Block, Frenchay Campus 

Time: 12:15-13:45

Improving employability prospects

During the UWE Bristol Repair Café, students get to work alongside STEM Ambassadors from industry and community volunteers from the Bristol Repair Café Network. This is a great way to meet and learn from experienced professionals, and connect over hands-on repair, whilst supporting the wider community and the UWE Bristol’s Sustainable Development Goals. (SDGs). Students can also earn their own repair kit and digital Skills Badges.

Interested in volunteering

Please contact us if you wish to get involved.

Email: engineeringourfuture@uwe.ac.uk

Environmental benefits

The organisers keep track of the impact of their repairs using the Fixometer tool from the Restart Project.

In its first year 64 volunteers have contributed:

• 591 hours
• repairing 188 items for students, staff and community members
• preventing 248kg of waste
• saving 1,566kg of CO₂ emissions.

This is equivalent to growing 26 tree seedlings for 10 years.