Paul Gerhardt Stift: Repair Day every second Thursday!

What to do with a toas­ter that does­n’t work any­mo­re? Or with a bike that cau­ses pro­blems? Or a jum­per that was feas­ted upon by moths? Throw it away? Or may­be the “Repair Café” at Paul-Ger­hart-Stift in Wed­ding can help?

At Paul-Ger­hardt-Stift (Mül­lerstr. 56), a work­shop aiming to fix ever­y­thing is ope­ning on the 3^rd of July. “We’­re open bet­ween 3 and 6 pm and invi­te you to try and fix any of your appli­ances, sup­port­ed by an expert”, the orga­nis­er of the pro­ject, Wil­le gGmbH, announ­ces. Visi­tors can bring their items that need fixing: Bikes, prams, PCs, prin­ters, lamps, clo­thes, toys… wha­te­ver is bro­ken or does­n’t work any­mo­re. Experts will then help you to fix your bro­ken goods again.

The aim of the pro­ject is to pass on know­ledge and exper­ti­se, to crea­te new net­works and to link neigh­bours. The “Repair Café” also wants to beco­me a popu­lar mee­ting and exch­an­ge point in Wed­ding. “If you fix a bike, a CD play­er or a pair of pants with a neigh­bour you don’t know yet, you’ll look dif­fer­ent­ly at that per­son when you see him or her on the streets. Fixing things tige­ther can lead to gre­at cont­acts in the neigh­bour­hoods”, says Wil­le gGmbH.

In Ger­ma­ny, incre­di­ble amounts just get thrown out – even items that could be fixed easi­ly. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, not many peo­p­le try to fix things any­mo­re. The “Repair Café” wants to chan­ge that. A “Repair Café” does­n’t only help to redu­ce the gar­ba­ge pit, but also pre­ser­ves rare earths and redu­ces CO2 emis­si­ons. “But main­ly, we want to show that repai­ring is fun and easy”.

The idea “Repair Café”

The con­cept of “Repair Cafés” was deve­lo­p­ped in Ams­ter­dam, whe­re the „Sticht­ing Repair Café“ (www.repaircafe.nl) has been orga­ni­s­ing repair mee­tings sin­ce 2010. In Ger­ma­ny, the net­work is coor­di­na­ted by “Stif­tungs­ge­mein­schaft anstif­tung & ertomis”.

In Wed­ding, the “Repair Café” will hap­pen every 1^st and 3^rd Thurs­day – dates and times can be found at www.diewille.de.

Paul-Ger­hardt-Stift

2^nd cour­ty­ard

Mül­lerstr. 56 – 58

trans­la­ti­on: Danie­la Hombach

More on Wedding’s Eng­lish Lan­guage Face­book-Page “Der schö­ne Wedding”