october newsletter: Camden Fixing Factory brings repair to the highstreet!
It's been an exciting month for the Fixing Factories, we opened our second site and kept working to narrow the digital divide. Here's what we've been up to and how you can get involved...
What’s been happening at Camden Fixing Factory?
We launched! It was our big launch on 27th October - with the Mayor of Camden Nasim Ali making a speech and cutting the ribbon (although of course we used a length of electrical cord, didn’t we?) and then declaring our workshop officially open!
Images by Mark Phillips and Possible
The weather was kind and we set up in the road alongside the regular market - we had tables where you could see the inner workings of a toaster - or get hands-on with changing laptop memory and peripherals - to show just how easy it can be.
Food was provided by local businesses - plus delicious homemade dips and fruitcake brought along by Fixing Factory regulars Sara and James.
We were delighted to welcome our local Camden councillors, plus representatives from the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund, North London Waste Authority, West London Waste Authority, Veolia, Young Camden Foundation, and an array of local faith, community and business leaders as well as visitors who brought items to be repaired. It was also brilliant to see Sian Berry (a big fixing advocate) and Simon Pitkeathley from Camden Unlimited.
Image by Mark Phillips
As it was Thursday we had our usual community fixing session - with volunteers from The Restart Project taking on fixing duties - huge thanks to Sami for leading on this!
Now the paint has dried and the last crumbs of fruitcake are a fond memory, it’s time to see just how much stuff we can fix - we’re looking forward to seeing you with your broken and misbehaving items at #Don’tThrowItThurday every week 11:00-14:00.
We now have an Instagram account @camden_fixing_factory, follow our journey!
Volunteers needed!
Due to publicity generated by the launch we’re seeing an uptick in demand - this means we’ll have places for more volunteers over the coming weeks and months. Not just fixing, but keeping the workshop running, logging repairs and data, developing systems, ordering parts, running publicity and liaising with our ‘fixees’. If you’re interested in volunteering we’d love to meet you - just send us a message via the contact page
Repair Club
We’re running a Repair Club - an evening session geared towards anyone with a longer-term interest in fixing stuff: all experience levels welcome. We share and develop skills and knowledge and tackle some of the tougher repairs we can’t resolve during our Thursday morning sessions - send us a message via the contact page if you’re interested in joining us
What’s new this month at Brent Fixing Factory?
We’ve been joined by Leonard and Akshay this month who are completing their work experience with us. We asked them how they’ve been finding their time at the Fixing Factory?
‘I found out about Fixing Factory through Skills Training UK as a part of potential work experience. The reason I chose the Fixing Factory is because it would help me with getting experience within IT and help me in finding a job. I’m finding the Fixing Factory very helpful as it has taught me many things in regards to IT such as installing an operating system, replacing parts of a laptop and erasing all the data from a PC using specialised software. It has also made me think about recycling laptops and computers more and not wasting them and throwing them away.’ Quote from Akshay.
Events
At the August and September Dr Laptop events, we treated 15 devices: 3 were fixed on the spot and 11 were repairable, just needing a spare part or advice about finding a local repair shop. You can find reliable repair businesses in London which have been reviewed by The Restart Project team here.
Check out what some of our attendees had to say about the day.
Stories of donations: our work isn't just about avoiding e-waste, the laptops we donate are improving people's lives too
Ana is retired and can’t afford a device. She needs a laptop as she is studying continuing education courses and hasn’t been able to participate in classes.
“The Fixing Factory team helped me as I wouldn't haven’t ever owned a laptop as I couldn't afford one. I found this service really nice, I will probably help out as volunteer and recommend others to donate their devices to project too.”, Quote from Ana
MB is a Ukrainian refugee whose son needed a laptop to allow him to participate in school activities and classes back home. They came over with only a backpack and had to leave all their belongings behind, so he has been using his phone to join in with school.