Council hands out £10,500 to open repair cafés across Hackney
Seven community organisations have been given £1,500 each to run repair cafés in Hackney between now and Christmas, the council has announced.
The grants, worth £10,500 in total, will pay for free sessions at which residents can bring broken electricals, clothes and bikes to be mended by volunteers. The Town Hall has timed the announcement to coincide with Zero Waste Week.
Two of the schemes target groups that repair events rarely reach. Limitless Hands CIC will run its cafés with British Sign Language interpretation for deaf and hard-of-hearing residents, while STIM CIC, which is led by neurodivergent people, says it will build neuro-inclusive design into its sessions.
Community Closet CIC said its café had emerged from what it calls its “journey of participation” model, with the volunteer now running it having first turned up at the group’s CoHub sessions as a parent before pitching the idea herself.
Founder Krista Brown said the group was also working with members of the Irish Traveller community on what it believes will be the first Irish Traveller-led community workshops of their kind in the area.
Community Closet holds its first textiles repair café on Tuesday 29 September and will then run one every fortnight until December. Threading Change CIC follows with a textiles café on Saturday 3 October.
The other successful applicants are Colville Estate Tenants and Residents Association, Morland and Blanchard Tenants and Residents Association, and St Paul and St Michael Primary School. The grants cover the period from September to December.
Cllr Jacob Cable, cabinet member for climate, clean air, energy and transport, said the cafés showed communities were leading on sustainability. He added that, as chair of the North London Waste Authority, he knew the seven boroughs it covers had much more to do to divert repairable items from incineration.
The council says the grants sit within its circular economy strategy and action plan, which aims to cut consumption-based emissions.