Repair Café International encouraged its international network to adapt services during the pandemic, for example by offering online repair help or organizing pick-up and drop-off services. The foundation also actively promoted the Repair Café concept and repair in a broad sense to the world in 2020, through online marketing, interviews, lectures, presentations, presence on panels, discussion groups and other sessions.

Preventing volunteers from dropping out

In all these ways, the foundation wanted to prevent broken items from being unjustly thrown away during the pandemic. It also wanted to prevent volunteers from dropping out and not returning to their Repair Café after the pandemic.

“For the repair of many products, you can currently only go to a Repair Café”, says director Martine Postma. “This vulnerable infrastructure must be protected. It would be a great shame if the pandemic were to wipe out Repair Cafés.”

Resilience of the Repair Café network

The scope for community repair was very limited in 2020. But the drive and resilience of the Repair Café network was heart-warming, writes chairman Joanna van der Zanden in the foreword to the annual report. “Repair Café volunteers are doers, problem solvers who don’t throw in the towel, but in the face of adversity put their shoulders to the wheel together. That quality is what makes the Repair Café network so strong.”

Download the annual report 2020

Want to know what else Repair Café International has accomplished in 2020? Download the annual report (in Dutch), or read the English summary:

• Annual report 2020 – web version (1MB)
• Annual report 2020 – print version (3,4 MB)
• Annual report 2020 – English summary

Het bericht Repairing in the COVID year 2020: read our annual report verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

By the end of 2019 exactly 2,000 Repair Cafés were active worldwide. A typical Repair Café has one repair meeting per month, at which an average of 25 objects are examined. On average 70 percent of these repairs are successful.

Full Boeing 747

“If we assume that an average object weighs a kilo, and if 35,000 objects are repaired in Repair Cafés around the world every month, then 2,000 Repair Café locations around the world prevent 35,000 kilos of waste every month”, Repair Café International writes in its annual report. “Over the whole of 2019 that is 420,000 kilos. That’s about as much as a full Boeing 747, with passengers, cargo and fuel on board!”

In the fight against climate change, Repair Cafés around the world have also made their contribution in 2019. Repair Café International calculates that the 420,000 successful repairs together have prevented up to 10 million kilos of CO2 emissions.

Jubilee Celebrating Repair

2019 was an anniversary year: the Repair Café celebrated its tenth anniversary in October. The foundation celebrated this with the jubilee program Celebrating Repair. This included a large symposium in Amsterdam, a jubilee exhibition and the presentation of a new, fresh corporate identity.

Download the annual report

Want to read more about the results of Repair Café International in 2019? Download the annual report 2019 (in Dutch). Or read the summary (in English).

Het bericht Repair Cafés prevent 420,000 kilos of waste in 2019 verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.