World Repair Day

For the first time in North Macedonia, on October 18th, World Repair Day was celebrated with an event organized by the ARNO association, held at the future “Repair Center” in Kisela Voda. The press conference announced two important calls: one for craftsmen and citizens with repair skills, and another for the donation of damaged toys.

Antonio Danilovski, Project Coordinator at ARNO, emphasized that this year’s focus is on mapping repair professionals and promoting solidarity: “We are celebrating World Repair Day under the slogan ‘Repairs for Everyone.’ ARNO is looking for people with skills to repair various items, excluding electronics, or creatives who can repurpose old objects into new ones – such as pet beds made from tires or lamps made from waste. To plan activities for the center, we need citizens and media involvement. We also encourage everyone with damaged/broken toys at home, for example, a broken eye on a toy elephant or a broken wheel on a toy car, to donate them for repair.”

As part of the celebrations, two workshops were held with students from the SUGS “Gjorgji Dimitrov,” from the forestry-woodworking and horticulture departments. Under the guidance of instructors, the students repaired wooden toys and made vases from jars, aiming to promote a repair culture.

World Repair Day is a global initiative that started 15 years ago and serves as a reminder of the importance of repairs for the environment and citizens. This is the first time that North Macedonia has joined this global movement, highlighting the importance of local initiatives.

Irina Janevska, President of ARNO, announced the opening of the “Repair Center” next year: “Today we are symbolically marking this day, but starting next year, we plan to open the ‘Repair Center,’ where, in addition to repairs and workshops, we will also organize pop-up events. We are planning a small concept- shop for products from the green and social businesses we have supported through our programs. Every major city in the world has such a space, often in the form of a Repair Café. We saw the concept seven years ago through an Erasmus project in Rijeka, and immediately knew this was a logical continuation of what we do in the field of green social entrepreneurship and circular economy. We are convinced that this is beneficial both for the environment and for citizens’ wallets.”

Mayor Orce Gjorgievski, who supported the initiative by providing space for the future center, urged citizens to actively engage in promoting the circular economy. “It is a great honor for me that Kisela Voda is the first municipality to, together with the ARNO, mark World Repair Day in North Macedonia. This is just the beginning of a long-term commitment to ecology and solidarity,” said Mayor Orce Gjorgievski.

ARNO has already opened calls for repair professionals and toy donations, and citizens who want to get involved can do so through the website.

This year, World Repair Day celebrates the efforts and work of repair initiatives that help people around the world give a second life to items. The celebration includes 1,800 events in over 35 countries, including an outdoor repair initiative at the “Grand-Place” in Brussels, repair workshops for refugees in Uganda, and a webinar with representatives of the European Commission. The slogan “Repairs for All” highlights the importance of repairs for all citizens. According to the latest data from the Open Repair Alliance, there have been 208,491 attempts to repair electrical and electronic devices, with 19,986 events held in 31 countries, organized by 1,158 repair initiatives. Last year, nearly 70,000 repair attempts were recorded, meaning that there were about 6,000 repairs each month – nearly 200 repairs every day.