Fixing the Future team members Namrata Primlani and Neelima Sailaja attended Fixfest 2023 on the 30th of October, 2023 at Cardiff Business School in Wales, UK. Fixfest is a regular gathering of members of the global repair community including repairers, activists, policy-makers, educators and companies. The ‘unconference’ brought together repair enthusiasts from across the UK in discussing a broad range of topics such as how to bring repair to our local communities, how to normalize repair and how to engage the next generation in repair.
The sense of community and passion for repair was wonderful to see as repair enthusiasts engaged in practical workshops, group activities and panel discussions at the day long festival. Dr. Neelima Sailaja Transitional Assistant Professor at the Horizon Digital Economy Hub, University of Nottingham from the Fixing the Future Project was part of a panel on Connecting repair to the community. Neelima’s talk touched upon her work with young repairers at the University of Nottingham, UK and described methods of engaging the next generation in repair within Universities. Namrata Primlani, Research Associate at Edinburgh-Napier University from Fixing the Future facilitated a workshop around Media, Publicity and participatory tactics exploring the question How can we get decision makers interested in repair? The workshop explored tactics such as new Repair and Reuse Declaration for engaging MPs and councillors as well as activist approaches to promoting repair.
Some of the key topics that were discussed at Fixfest were :
Methods for Connecting repair to community based grassroot organizations, councils and local charities.
How to bring together different repair movements across the country.
How to integrate data about attitudes towards repair, repair habits and practices among people in the UK.
The role of waste management organizations and circular economy systems in the repair movement.
How to engage the next generation in repair through education, hands-on activities and access to spaces to engage in repair.
Economic challenges in the repair movements such as funding, insurance and operating costs.
How to engage decision makers such as MPs and local councils in the repair movement.
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