Case Fredrikstad | Fix and Repair Workshops in “Culture Night” Event
Author: Fredrikstad Municipality
The TREASoURcE project organised several fixing and repair workshops in a yearly cultural event – Culture Night – in Fredrikstad, Norway, to draw the attention to the importance of reuse.
Culture Night is a yearly cultural event in Fredrikstad, Norway, where people can experience concerts, theatre, film screenings exhibitions, cultural walks, dance and much more from both professionals and amateurs – all in one evening, all around in the city. It usually takes place in the beginning of autumn and attracts a lot of city residents.
Thanks to the TREASoURcE project, this year we put a lot of emphasis on sustainability and reuse. We organized several fixing and repair workshops to highlight the importance of reuse and repurposing, so that all residents would become aware of it. There were several locations where citizens could get repaired cloth, electronic devices, shoes, bags and jewelleries free of charge. In addition to the fix and repair workshops, we also hired a cultural stylist to create new, inspiring works of art from used textiles. Her works were exhibited in the city’s shopping centre. Thus, it was possible to draw the attention of even larger crowd to the importance of reuse.
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Active collaboration
Several vocational schools were participating in the event, including students studying repair of electrical infrastructure, sewing, shoemaking and goldsmithing. In addition to the free of charge repair services that were provided by the students, we also cooperated with a professional fixing workshop, REbyME, where people were taught how to repair their clothes or other textiles themselves making the workshop an educational experience rather than a purely service-oriented one.
This focus on interactive learning empowered participants by giving them the tools to continue repairing items on their own in the future (read about similar repair workshop, Paranduskelder, focusing on education in Tartu, Estonia, here).
Focus on practical and educational benefits
To guarantee the workshops reached their objectives, the focus was placed on both the practical and educational aspects of sustainability. Ungt Entreprenørskap (Young Entrepreneurship) was an important partner in that. Ungt Entrepernørskap is a non-profit, nationwide organization that, together with the education system, companies and other actors, works to develop children and young people’s creativity and entrepreneurial skills.
Under the guidance of this NGO, students can set up their own student-led companies and carry out fixing services through these companies fostering a real-world business environment where they could showcase their abilities and learn about customer service, pricing, and time management.
The hands-on nature of the workshops, combined with the opportunity to learn repair skills from professionals, ensured that the event would leave a lasting impact on the community.
Future plans
The event proved to be a success: there were locations where people were queuing up before opening with products waiting to be repaired. This suggests that the workshops could benefit from increased capacity in the future. Another piece of feedback involved expanding the types of items that could be repaired, with several participants asking for the inclusion of bicycle repair or furniture repurposing. Based on the feedback and outcomes, there is clear potential for developing a more regular schedule for repair workshops, possibly quarterly or even bimonthly. It could be useful to organize the workshops same time at the same location, so the residents of Fredrikstad could get used to it. This would also help in the marketing of the event.
The fix and repair workshops should also be continued at big festivals, since large events get a lot of publicity and attract large crowds The fix and repair activities attracted a lot of national media attention and hence, are anticipated to have good potential in future. For future development, it would be beneficial to explore sustainable funding models to ensure the workshops can continue to run free of charge or at a minimal cost. Cooperation with the students is essential in that.