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@futurebird @Remittancegirl you know in the EU some people try to push the "right to repair" through parliament? And this is tied to repair cafes? This is real community building stuff. Upcycling has been a trend for some time now. And France has implemented a bonus if you let your stuff get repaired instead of throwing it away. Think about it: this benefits small local businesses and you lessen slave labour in other parts of the world.

@Pterry @futurebird @Remittancegirl Absolutely! Repairing "trash" technology can also be educational, empowering, inclusive and community building.

From 2000 I founded and ran a free, open access technology lab where anyone could claim a free computer. The challenge was that you had to repair it yourself, and install free software—learning how was facilitated by other participants.

@jameswallbank @Pterry @Remittancegirl

How did it go? Did people like it?

I would love to do something like this at my school and we could easily manifest heaps of old computers, phones, etc. since many of our parents and community are the kind of "working professionals" who have such "junk" laying around their homes.

I don't know if these same people would use the things they build, though.

(Just as an example I think we could have a pile of three-year-old like-new smart phones easily.)

@futurebird @Pterry @Remittancegirl It became the longest running open access media lab in the UK! I worked at it for around 15 years. Regrettably, in the UK we never got the strategic engagement I aimed at, so our impacts were limited to the locality. In Brazil, however, the model was adopted and became widespread.