Local Help – Read More – Living Laudato Si'

Have you ever needed to borrow something just for a small job and found you needed to buy it? And then thereafter it rests in a drawer or cupboard unused for years?

Or perhaps you wonder why everyone down a road has a lawnmower but they only use it for an hour a month (if that) and no-one thought to have a pooled resource?

Are you holding on to some broken items in the hope that you’ll one day find a shop that can fix it or learn how to fix it yourself?

Perhaps you are good at repairing electrical items but in need of help to sew garments? Or good at fixing furniture and keen to help others with your skill?

We are encouraged to buy seemingly limitless amounts of stuff and throw them away when they break (and well before they should). And in the process we consume materials without thinking twice. We are living as though the planet is many times bigger than it actually is.

A cost-effective and responsible approach is to try and buy things to last and repair them when they break to keep them going for longer. And to lend and borrow tools and equipment to and from others especially if we don’t need them for more than a quick task. All this to try and slow down the accelerated consumption of resources that is patently unsustainable.

These tasks are difficult only because we are often unaware of the needs and capabilities of others in our own communities.

Maybe there is a skill swap group in your area?

Or a sharing and borrowing group in the church or workplace?

We are fortunate to have a local Repair Cafe running once per month in one of the local community centres. It is great at getting people together and helping many people fix those broken items that can be so inconvenient at times. We’ll write a bit more about this in a dedicated article in the future. Hopefully for now we hope to inspire you with that community idea: it might already exist in your community or may require a few conversations to get started…