Secondary 4 students Saranesan s/o Vsaravanan and Mohammad Dini Syazwan became handymen for a day last year at Repair Kopitiam, a community project where volunteers fix things for free to combat the throw-away culture.
The students, together with their schoolmates from Commonwealth Secondary, were keen to test out the basic repair skills such as soldering, fabric sewing and electronic diagnostics they had picked up at a workshop conducted in school. They weren’t disappointed.
Residents in the Jurong West neighbourhood turned up at the void deck of an HDB flat – the group’s makeshift workshop – lugging broken fans, torn sofa covers and worn-out furniture. One resident brought two broken fans to have them fixed.
Two salvaged fans, one happy resident
Saranesan and Dini repaired the first fan by replacing the two-pin plug with a three-pin one. It was easy and took just 10 minutes. The boys found the second task a bit more challenging. They had to dismantle the fan to diagnose the problem. It turned out that the wire connected to the motor was loose.
“I enjoy repairing things. When something’s broken, I want to understand the cause and find out how I can fix it,” Dini says. They soldered the wire back to the motor and when they tested it, the fan worked as good as new.
The owner was so happy and thanked them profusely.
For Saranesan, interacting with the residents was something he wasn’t comfortable with initially. He says, “I’m quite shy and don’t talk that much.”
He warmed up to one resident though, who had brought in a drawer with a loose handle. “She started telling me how much the drawer meant to her daughter… I wanted to know more,” he says. “I made her open up by talking about my family. I didn’t realise I’d be that interested in chatting with strangers.”
Repair, reuse, and recycle
The school’s Subject Head of Craft & Technology, Ms Rubiyah Bte Khamis, says that opportunities like this give the students the chance to apply the skills they’ve learnt while getting them involved in a meaningful social endeavour.
They also hone their communication skills and learn to work as a team.
“Most of the time, we throw away things which are broken,” says Ms Rubiyah. “So when the students talk to these residents who bring in their items for repair, they get a different perspective. They begin to understand why some people don’t throw their items away – it could mean something to the owner or perhaps the person is just being thrifty.”
Students learn about empathy through the Repair Kopitiam experience, Ms Rubiyah adds.
The fun starts in school
The boys’ weekend activity is all part of the school’s maker movement, which encourages students to tinker, make and learn. The school has a dedicated Design Space where staff members have conducted short workshops on a variety of interests such as street art, sewing and even 3D printing. Every week, on “Maker Thursday”, students are free to use the Design Space to work on their projects and exercise their creativity – from building radio-controlled model aircraft to modifying race cars ? under the guidance of Design & Technology teachers.
These activities are not part of the formal curriculum. They are opportunities for students to learn technical and problem-solving skills while having fun.
The Repair Kopitiam session is an example of such hands-on learning experiences. Dini says, “Learning doesn’t always have to happen in the classroom. As I was fixing the fan, I also began to understand more about electronics such as how the fan motor makes the blades rotate in a certain direction.”
Both Dini and Saranesan have heard from their teacher that there will be an upcoming Repair Kopitiam session and they can’t wait to sign up for it.
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