The Swan Repair Cafe
It’s all about paying it forward, at the heart of it. I’m using my skills to lift up the community. I think this is what makes a community. Noticing each other.
The Swan Repair Café is not just about mending broken items – it’s about people, community, and giving things a new lease of life. Every month, the four hosts of the Repair Cafe gather in different suburbs around Swan to share skills, repair treasured belongings, and enjoy each other’s company.
For Alanah, joining the Café was a way of settling into a new home and new community. “I wanted to meet new people and find out about new places. I’d just moved into a new house at the time. I’d heard of Repair Cafes before. I feel like I get the best of both worlds – I meet new people, and I keep my hands busy.” An engineer by trade, Alanah loves “anything that moves” and finds joy in puzzles, mechanisms, and tinkering. “Each mechanism is unique and I learn something new each time. It’s like… my hobby is learning new hobbies.”
Repairing also connects her to family values. “My parents and grandparents, they had things to last them. Everything had a use. If I don’t need something anymore, I can pass it on. But things today, they just aren’t built to last like before.”
For Alanah, Repair Café is a space to resist throwaway culture while making friends: “We have the best chats at the Repair Café… sometimes, we’re meant to close at 2pm and we’ll still be chatting at 2:30. It’s a good excuse to see my friends. We’re a part of each other’s lives now. It’s been 3 years now, and that’s how we’ve lasted.”
Evie also joined when she was new to Brabham and looking for something meaningful. “I love sewing and wanted to be a part of something. I’d just come out of working retail so I wanted something for me… to contribute to this new little community that feels like a small country town.” At first, she wanted something light: “I wanted low energy and low commitment, and just to turn up… it hasn’t worked out that way but I actually love that I have a stake in it now!”
Like Alanah, Evie has seen the Café through ups and downs: “There was a time where I was ready to let it die as it just wasn’t working. But this year, we’ve changed things up – different people, different places, different needs… I feel excited!”
She recalls highlights like EcoFest at Brabham Primary: “The best part of that was all the kids bringing their teddies up for repair. We get the job of fixing up their favourite soft toy and giving it back to them. It’s lovely.” For her, repair is not just practical but deeply human: “I hope that people feel a sense of connection at the Repair Café. It’s lovely. It’s about giving back and receiving at the same time, and you don’t always see that today.”
Evie’s mum, Deb, remembers being gently pulled into the Café alongside her daughter. “I remember Evie saying, ‘it’s this repairing, sewing thing… want to come?’ and I thought, well, that sounds good, but I don’t really like mending my own things. But when you’re mending for someone else, it’s different!” To her surprise, it became something she values deeply: “I tend to get too involved with things and I didn’t want to do that… but now, we’re a committee and this is what we do!”
For Deb, the Café is about being of service to others in the community: “I don’t really know what motivates me to do this. I’m not very motivated at home. It’s the commitment to others, I think. It’s the commitment to the community. And the people here that I do it with.”
She especially enjoys the mobile nature of the Café, travelling around Swan. “The travelling has been fun! The libraries are great… not always loads of fixing going on, but lots of chatter, connection and people to see.” She hopes the Café can one day have its own home-base and identity. “I’m thinking of making us aprons. Maybe out of jeans or something. It’d be nice to have some kind of identity.”
Paul’s journey into repair began decades earlier, when his uncle introduced him to computers. “My Uncle Sandy had the 1st generation of PC. I remember, I was 7 or 8 years old. I played Sim City. It really got me interested in computers. Since then I’ve had a Commodore and an i486… I’m always tinkering with something.” Today, he brings that lifelong passion for tech to both Swan and Bassendean Repair Cafés.
“I enjoy solving a person’s tech problem. We go through the problem together. My role is to teach them and to give advice. I always give people a path forward… it might not be the one they wanted but it’s the one that has been determined!” For Paul, the Repair Café is about more than just the technology. It’s about the people he meets and the way he gets to contribute the thing he’s most passionate about.
“Everyone has made me feel very welcome. The social atmosphere, the meeting of different people… even researching challenges, I enjoy it all. There have been times in the past where I’ve been up until sunrise researching a particular tech challenge! And that’s how I see them… as challenges to solve – not problems.”
At the heart of his volunteering is a deep sense of purpose: “It’s all about paying it forward, at the heart of it. I’m using my skills to lift up the community. I think this is what makes a community. Noticing each other. It’s us all doing our jobs… and hopefully we make people’s weeks.”
Across all their stories, a common theme emerges: repair is really about relationships. Whether it’s a beloved teddy bear stitched up with care, a laptop saved from landfill, or a neighbour welcomed with a smile, the Swan Repair Café is weaving connections as much as it is repairing objects.
The goals of Swan Repair Café
The Hosts share a hopeful vision for the future:
Grow a strong team of volunteers – “In the future, I’d love for us to have so many volunteers that we don’t need to come each week… a full community that’s more sustainable.”
Spread a culture of repair – “I hope that people learn that their things can be repaired and they don’t need to throw it away. Australia chucks things away a lot.”
Create belonging – “It really brings people together. You get to have a chat with different people and it’s really nice, yeah.”
Encourage awareness – “I hope Repair Café is making people aware of the objects they’re buying, because some of the things from the shops today, they’re not repairable, they’re not built for it.”
The Hosts warmly invite new people to join them – whether you love sewing, tinkering with tech, working with tools, or simply making people feel welcome at the door. You don’t need to be an expert to make a difference.
Come along. Bring your skills, your curiosity, or just your smile! Together, we’ll give our things – and each other – a new lease of life!
With thanks to the Hosts of the Swan Repair Cafe for sharing their story with us.
