WeRepair

<< Background >>We applied to this project because all partners shared the same belief that Repair Cafes should extend beyond urban settings, serving as a catalyst for waste reduction and supporting a circular economy also in rural areas. Based on each organization's experience working in rural villages, we understood the potential impact of Repair Cafés on the promotion of social inclusion, stimulating community participation, and advancing lifelong learning and informal education for adults.We also sought to share and learn from our partners and European makers, specifically their skills in setting up Repair Cafés, teaching troubleshooting and Repair to small communities, and logistics involved in organizing such events in a territory with undeniable specificities as small interior rural areas. The development of such a project favored that exchange, ensuring it enhanced the unique experiences of each participating organization.Finally, we were also driven by the desire to give our local communities and other repair communities in Europe the opportunity to also learn and benefit from an Erasmus project which brings cultural and social exchange, and inspire other communities in rural Europe to start their own local repair communities.<< Objectives >>The project sought to accomplish the following objectives: 1. Inspire and guide the creation of repair communities of practice in European rural areas; 2. Develop a significant number of local Repair Cafes in small and interior rural areas together with the local community;3. Promote the exchange of best practices between organizations organizing Repair Cafes in Rural areas and with European Makers specialized in Repair Communities;4. Stimulate new forms of collaboration between grassroots organizations toward the goal of active and structured intervention in adult education;5. Pilot a mobility scheme for future Repair exchanges in the sector of Adult education; 6. Better understand the specificities of Repair Communities in Rural areas and the potentialities of these activities in such territories;7. Promote the values of Erasmus+ and European exchange within isolated rural communities, through the promotion of peer-to-peer learning and grassroots activities; 8. Supporting opportunities for participants in acquiring and developing key competencies, including basic skills, to foster employability, socio-educational and personal development, as well as participation in civic and social life.<< Implementation >>We were able to implement all the activities proposed, namely:1. Buinho +65 Repair Cafe was structured within a Makerspace previously dedicated to children, that served as a venue for workshops and capacitation for the senior population and also teachers. The workshops also capacitated seniors to become volunteers in the following Repair Cafés;2. The FabLab Cuenca Itinerant Repair Cafe was created around the mobile Fablab that was reconverted to travel to remote villages within Castilla-la-Mancha to empower adult females at risk of exclusion and improve the overall community self-esteem;3. Repair Cafe en Combrailles developed well beyond the original intention of organizing two annual International Repair Cafes, and evolved to the creation of a Maker oriented Repair Cafe network with the neighboring villages around Manzat;4. The Repair Mobility scheme was successfully implemented. The impact of the coming of twelve European Makers to the visiting small communities surpassed the initial expectations and is well represented within the video documentary;5. The WeRepair Video resulted in a light (16 mnts), but inspiring and informative documentary art that transmits the unique engagement between all participants.<< Results >>We now describe the outputs divided by partner organization:1. Buinhoa) 5x community repair cafes;b) 16x workshops to teachers and local community members in troubleshooting, repair, and electronicsc) Creation of 2x Adult Education Learning centers - Messejana and Castro Verde - dedicated to the empowerment of the senior populationd) Hosted and exchanged practices with 4 international Repair volunteerse) 3x educational activities developed for families running in parallel with the Repair Cafes in Messejana, in the form of Junior Repair Cafes for toy Repair.2. Cuencaa) 2x community repair cafes;b) 14x workshops with local community members in troubleshooting, electronics, and digital fabricationc) Creation of a mobile Adult Education Learning center for secluded communitiesd) Hosted and exchanged practices with 4 international Repair volunteers;3. Mountain Makersa) 6x community repair cafes in Manzat and the surrounding neighboring villages;b) Hosted and exchanged practices with 4 international Repair volunteersc) Development of an international Repair Week4. Transversal outputsa) white paper on how to organize Repair Cafes b) web page of the projectc) video Documentary about Repair movement in Rural areas