A line-up of people with electronics, lamps, clothing and other items, waited outside the Repair Café in Moncton, N.B., Saturday.
“We need to consume less and we need to help our environment, so the idea is to divert things from going to the [landfill] and make sure that we are using things that are usable,” said RepairVerse Café Founder, Ali Ahmar.
“We found out that the problem with repair is most of the time it’s the cost,” Ahmar said. “The cost associated with repair is sometimes prohibitive.”
People bring broken items to the repair café and a team of volunteers tries to fix them for free. Ahmar said he had the idea for a long time, after seeing similar events in other cities. His first Repair Café took place in March 2024 at Youth Impact.
“We partnered with them to also help their clientele to learn skills,” Ahmar said. “This is part of the whole vision of RepairVerse is to bring people to learn how to repair but we will start with the youth.”
Now the café takes place on the second Saturday of every month at Resurgo Place in Moncton and the group does pop-up events with organizations such as the Town of Riverview and Eco360.
Ahmar said they serve around 30 clients a month and have eight to 10 volunteers at every event with a variety of skill sets.
“People who are coming are very happy and you get very satisfied people,” Ahmar said.
“The other type of success is that acceptance you get from the community from people we talk to, we’re always welcome.”
Ahmar said he hopes RepairVerse continues to grow so it can move into smaller communities and reach more people. He said there are expansion projects on the agenda including one that is set to launch in March.
“It’s called Silver Tech and it targets senior citizens who have difficulties using electronics and technology.”
Ahmar said Silver Tech will help seniors set up strong passwords to avoid being hacked and simple fraud avoidance techniques.
