Finding Strength in Community: My Mental Health Boost at the Repair Café

This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is centred around a simple yet powerful theme: Community. And I couldn’t be more on board with it. In a world where loneliness kills thousands of people every year, finding our own community can change the way we see life completely and gives us something real to hold onto.

For me, that anchor has been my local repair cafés (one in my town and one in the next village) — places where toasters get a second chance, zippers find new life, and, perhaps most importantly, people come together.

When I first started going, it was to help the planet by helping things being repaired and reused instead of chucked away. But I quickly realised repair cafés are about so much more. It’s about sharing skills, stories, laughs, and cups of tea, while doing our bit for the planet. It’s neighbours helping neighbours. It’s the joy of being useful, even in small ways (I'm either there for 'triage/welcome' or serving cups of teas/coffees!). And it has become a key part of how I look after my mental health.

There’s something incredibly grounding about being part of a space where everyone pitches in—not because they have to, but because they want to. I always leave feeling a little lighter, a little more connected, with a smile on my face.

We all need places where we feel seen, valued, and part of something bigger than ourselves. For me, that place is the repair café.

So this Mental Health Awareness Week, I’m celebrating the power of community—and encouraging anyone who can to find their own version of it. It might be a book club, a local garden, a choir, an art group or something entirely different. Whatever it is, let it be something that fills you up, not drains you.

Because connection heals. And community—real, human, hands-on community—might just be one of the best tools we have for looking after our mental wellbeing.

You can find your local repair café here: https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/