Sussex Green Living: Repair Café Challenge winners announced

Students create inspiring art in Repair Cafe Challenge

When thinking about living an environmentally sustainable life, the first thing most people think about is the 3 Rs: ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’. As part of Sussex Green Living’s education outreach programme, we initiated a School Challenge looking at how you can reduce waste by repairing.

Our school challenge for Horsham District Schools was supported by a Horsham District Community Lottery Grant, a donation from a Horsham councillor and kindly judged by Horsham artist, Morag Warrack.

The challenge invited students to learn about repair cafés, what they do and how they help reduce waste on our planet. There are items that could be repaired but often people don’t have the skillset to make repairs. Repair cafés are run by volunteers who have both a passion and the expertise to repair electrical, mechanical and textile items. The premise is that you can take along your items and for a small donation, they will try to fix them while you stay, watch and hopefully learn a new skill at the same time.

The pupils were asked to create a poster of their local repair café and share it in their local community. Sussex Green Living supported the schools by delivering assemblies, classroom sessions with eco councils and school visits with our Inspiration Eco Station (seen in lower photo).

The standard of artwork was very high and some beautiful posters were created. The pupils also found some creative ways to promote their posters from school newsletters and local church noticeboards to displaying in the windows of local houses and the school website. Look out for the posters in your area. Congratulations to Lola from William Penn Primary School who wins first prize. “Lola’s poster was very easy to understand and connect with what the repair café is all about. She had good use of colours and choice of images.” said challenge judge, Morag. Second prize was award to Group 1 from Northolmes Junior School Eco Club. Their poster showed an excellent understanding of the link between repairing, recycling and wildlife. Highly Commended awards were also given to: • Year 4 Sycamore Class at Arunside Primary School • Harriet at Holy Trinity School • Group 3 at Northolmes Junior School Eco Club • Holly at St Peters School, Henfield • Ava at Steyning Primary School • Eve and Pippa at West Chiltington Primary School • Isabelle at William Penn Primary School Entries can be viewed at www.sussexgreenliving. org.uk which also provides listings for repair cafés in

West Sussex. Carrie Cort, Founder, Sussex Green Living

Top: winning poster from Lolo of William Penn Primary School. Bottom: Sussex Green Living volunteer Mariya Salahuddin promoting the Challenge at Billingshurst Primary School

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