Repair Cafe helps bring community together

The Parish of Llwchwr and Gorseinon has started a Repair Cafe, helping the local community to save money and learn new skills.

Repair Cafes are pop-up events that are run by volunteers where people can bring their broken or damaged household items to be repaired, for free, by volunteers. This prevents items from going to landfill, saving people money and bringing people together, reducing isolation and enabling skill-sharing.

Organiser Gill Knight, who is also chair of the diocese's Eco Church working group, said: "The Repair Cafe is run by the parish under the umbrella of Repair Cafe Wales.

"We use volunteers mainly from our own congregation, but also other local contacts, to offer free repairs to items brought in. These range from mechanical toys through clocks, bikes, electrical items such as vacuums, laminators, hairdryers, to sewing repairs and mending crockery. It's great fun to see what comes in next.

"We are not like TVs Repair Shop -. we don't make things beautiful again, but we do try to make them work again. As it's for free, people understand if it can't be done, but still appreciate the effort. We offer free tea and coffee and encourage people to wait and watch the repair - the ethos being that having watched they may be able to fix it themselves next time.. It makes a good atmosphere in the hall, with eight to 10 volunteers helping one another and chatting to the 'customers'"

Repair Cafe Wales is keen to hear from churches that would like to get involved and more information is available on the website.