Activism

A Collection of Amazing Repair Organizations Around the World

Cleaning water-damanged hard drive with toothbrush
Work by Helfen von Herzen to rescue data and parts from water-damaged devices.

Global supply-chain shortages significantly impacted markets in 2021, and while it wasn’t easy, several amazing organizations from around the world managed to keep fixers fixing. This incredible feat allowed people to stay more connected to their things and less dependent on buying new objects. iFixit is incredibly proud to have partnered with these organizations in pushing the repair economy forward. 

the 5 Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot (compost)
The five Rs, per Zero Waste Home.

One of our partnerships is with the Repair Café Foundation, and in 2021, we were delighted to specifically support the Danish and Swiss Café outposts.

We also sponsored CLIMATE BET’s Zero Waste Challenge by providing them with three Essential Electronics Toolkits (EETs) to advance their mission to refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot (i.e. composting). Zero Waste challenges people to try the five Rs for at least a month, to see how much money they can save and, more importantly, how much less they need to consume. Our EETs are our most economical do-everything toolkit, encouraging people to get started with electronics repair and simple DIY household repairs. 

Last year, Hardwear.io held their annual hardwear security conference in Payatu BV, Netherlands. We sponsored the event by sending over some Pro Tech Toolkits (PTTs) and ETTs as a way to demonstrate how the average person (if willing to be patient) can learn how to access their electronics hardware. This means not only fixing their machine, but also, by opening it and seeing how it works, they are better able to secure it.

Our EU headquarters is based in Germany and this year, parts of Germany received unprecedented rainfall, causing major flooding, with loss of life and property. We donated tools to Gordon Müllejans, a tech savvy iFixit fan who started an organization called Helfen von Herzen (transl. “helping from the heart”), where he tried to save data from water damaged gadgets. We also sent tools to the organization StAhrke Hilfe e.V. which they then distributed to local repair initiatives. 

For many, these machines aren’t just costly pieces of tech, they are also vessels for storing invaluable digital information and memories. 

Mud-drenched MacBook internals.
A mud-drenched MacBook, from Hilfsprojekt Helfen von Herzen.

In addition to helping victims of the flood, we also donated a PTT to this German makerspace. Makerspaces are hubs for curious tinkerers who want to know more about how things work. By donating to this space, we hope to encourage other makers in the area to also explore the world of repair. 

Members of Ndwenga e.V working together.

Ndwenga e.V. is a German-based nonprofit that provides repair education in Kinshasa, Africa. We were glad to support their work and spread awareness for right-to-repair across the continent. 

If you know of any repair-centric organizations that could benefit from our support, please reach out to us on our Meta discussion thread to add your picks.