Older people have diverse interests, and many older people want to be involved in a broad range of activities such as working, volunteering, being politically active or taking part in local groups or clubs. The skills and experience of older people developed over their lifetime can often be overlooked. Supporting older people to volunteer and share their skills can provide them with an increased sense of purpose and belonging, improves their well-being and benefits the local community.

Working in partnership with Flintshire Local Voluntary Council (FLVC), their volunteer centre and with older people groups and clubs across Flintshire, we’ve identified individuals with valuable skills in the art of repairing and fixing household items to work with Repair Café Wales to volunteer at a local Repair Café.

Repair Café Wales opens and supports repair cafés across Wales. In their simplest form, repair cafés are pop up events held on regular dates where the local community can get their broken household items repaired for free by volunteers. The types of things Repair Café fix includes damaged or broken household items such as clothes, electrical goods, technology, woodwork, children’s toys, furniture, bikes.

Although some of the volunteers are experts, some are simply people who like fixing and tinkering. Others aren’t practical at all but can organise Repair Café events, help with administration, or host the front desk. The volunteers have enabled 5 new repair cafes to open in Flintshire, three in Mold, one in Sandycroft and the latest opened in Flint Town Hall in January 2024.

Each month, the Repair Cafe volunteers fix things that would otherwise be thrown away. In doing so, they help save the environment, share skills with people that need things fixing, and meet like-minded people. A full list of Repair Cafés across Wales can be found at: https://repaircafewales.org/events/list/. If you would like to find out more or are interested in becoming a volunteer or even starting a Repair Café in your area, visit: https://repaircafewales.org/get-involved/.