My name is Rocío Salceda, I'm a fashion designer from Madrid, based in New York City. I've been living here for 20 years and I consider myself twice a stranger. I'm a stranger here, I'm a stranger there, but I feel I belong to the Repair Cafe El Barrio.
The Repair Cafe is basically a free workshop. We teach people how to fix whatever it is that they have. I don't see myself as the founder of Repair Cafe El Barrio, I'm just the person who took that first step, I'm the instigator of having this group of strangers come together. There’s a satisfaction of knowing that I'm part of a bigger thing.
If you ask me today, do you identify more with what I do here for no money once a month or with my job? I say, the thing I do once a month. It's empowering to say, “I can fix it.” Nobody can take that away from you.
A reason why I started Repair Cafe was to get out of a personal drama in my own life. Every time I've gone through something, I need to get out of my head, I need to be of service. The inspiration was need. The inspiration was curiosity. The inspiration was seeing how things were getting really dark in America after the pandemic. It was instinctive to me. We needed to get together. I started by being the example, even if it was this little example of having my sewing machine in a gallery asking people to come. I went from one volunteer to more than 20 volunteers.
What's possible here is to sit down with somebody you don't know and learn from them, seeing the things that are common in us, rather than things that divide us. Anybody of any background, any philosophy, any lifestyle can come here and learn from somebody else. The core of Repair Cafe El Barrio is the human connections, the human stories.
In my small way, once a month with Repair Cafe, I want to be an example of what’s possible. Let’s sit down, talk, build something together, fix something together, see it from start to finish, and who knows what’s gonna happen next. I want somebody to see this and say, “I can do that, too.”
The Repair Cafe is basically a free workshop. We teach people how to fix whatever it is that they have. I don't see myself as the founder of Repair Cafe El Barrio, I'm just the person who took that first step, I'm the instigator of having this group of strangers come together. There’s a satisfaction of knowing that I'm part of a bigger thing.
If you ask me today, do you identify more with what I do here for no money once a month or with my job? I say, the thing I do once a month. It's empowering to say, “I can fix it.” Nobody can take that away from you.
A reason why I started Repair Cafe was to get out of a personal drama in my own life. Every time I've gone through something, I need to get out of my head, I need to be of service. The inspiration was need. The inspiration was curiosity. The inspiration was seeing how things were getting really dark in America after the pandemic. It was instinctive to me. We needed to get together. I started by being the example, even if it was this little example of having my sewing machine in a gallery asking people to come. I went from one volunteer to more than 20 volunteers.
What's possible here is to sit down with somebody you don't know and learn from them, seeing the things that are common in us, rather than things that divide us. Anybody of any background, any philosophy, any lifestyle can come here and learn from somebody else. The core of Repair Cafe El Barrio is the human connections, the human stories.
In my small way, once a month with Repair Cafe, I want to be an example of what’s possible. Let’s sit down, talk, build something together, fix something together, see it from start to finish, and who knows what’s gonna happen next. I want somebody to see this and say, “I can do that, too.”
