Grant Fund Recipients 2023

In September 2022, we launched our first Time After Time e-waste fund giving grants of £10,000-£75,000 to projects that tackle the issue, from extending the life of products through repair to boosting reuse, recycling and raising public awareness.

Check out the projects that received funding last year:

The Warren Youth Project

 The Warren Youth Project is helping young people develop their digital skills through tech repair workshops in their digital hub, The Curve. 💻 They previously trialled a laptop-repair session with people aged 16-25, where participants learned how to repair old laptops – and then got to keep them (plus a 6 month data voucher). Support from the Time After Time fund will allow The Warren Youth Project to expand their services over the next two years, tackling digital exclusion, upskilling young people, and reducing e-waste all in one!

 Sustainable Hive CIC

 📚Teachers at education consultancy Sustainable Hive are developing a repair workshop where young people will learn through immersive, hands-on workshops about the problem of e-waste. Experts will lead activities on where solutions lie for this growing environmental issue, how items can be repaired rather than binned, and the role young people can play in driving city-wide action.🤝  Time After Time funding will help the Sustainable Hive develop these workshops in collaboration with nonprofits, local waste companies, and repair cafes.

 Possible

 We all have those 'electrical thingys no one fixes’ hiding in our drawers, cluttering our homes and adding to the growing amount of electronic waste out there! 👀Luckily, fixing experts Possible are on it. They’ll be using funds from the Time After Time fund to build on their community repair ‘Fixing Factory’ sites in Camden and Brent by hiring a Head of Training to develop a ‘Fixing Fast Track’ training programme. This project, aimed at young people, will develop, test, and oversee the delivery of training programmes around repair and electricals fixing, including everything ‘from a hair dryer to an air fryer’. The project will introduce at least fifty young people to the world of repair, with eight people to be placed in works, apprenticeships, or further training.

Restart Project

The Restart Project will use Time After Time funds to create a 10 Year Tech project to reduce e-waste in universities. They will collaborate with student groups to create change through student-led repair and reuse initiatives, campus lobbying, and communications campaigns.📱📱📱  They’ll be running repair cafés at universities across the UK, sharing fixing knowledge and engaging young people in conversations about e-waste.

Groundwork East

Groundwork East will be using their network of university, local authority, and waste management partners to bring the conversation on e-waste to students.📣 🏫  E-cigarettes and vape pens – which form a growing part of e-waste – will be of particular focus. Groundwork East will provide students with location-specific information on responsible recycling and disposal of electronics, and they’ll facilitate opportunities for community members to learn about reusing and repairing small electrical items. They’re aiming to reach 50,000 students and staff across the East of England through social media and in-person campaigning, and their messaging will have additional reach to residents living nearby university sites as well as friends, family members and networks of those engaging with the campaign.

Library of Things Limited

 📼Anyone else miss Blockbuster? 😰 Social enterprise Library of Things is on a mission to make renting e-products better than buying them, helping reduce costs and electronic waste. They will use Time After Time funds to expand their current service and technology into a platform for hyperlocal movements around e-product reuse and repair to reduce e-waste. This will include snazzy features like a digital forum, in-person events, and membership offers. They’ll partner with waste management company ReLondon and OWL Electrical to launch this platform across London with hopes to scale even further after that.

 Foothold Cymru - Bright Sparks Llanelli

 Social and environmental justice charity Foothold Cymru is using Time After Time funds to build a new project: Bright Sparks Llanelli 💫 . This project will reduce e-waste in Carmarthenshire while teaching young people employable skills around the care and repair of small electrical devices. Bright Sparks Llanelli will create pop up events to re-distribute donated electrical items, keeping tech in use for longer, and they’ll organise workshops that teaching young people and local community members how to repair small electrical items.

Youth & Community Connexions

 Youth-led charity Youth & Community Connexions works with young people to co-design and develop activities and workshops across a range of topics. They plan to use Time After Time funds to run education campaigns about e-waste with local students and community members, both through creating engaging video content and by running in-person events at schools.  When visiting schools, they’ll focus on sharing practical solutions with students, like how to find their nearest e-waste drop-off spot. Each week on Thursdays they’ll host a repair shop, and they’ll recruit young leaders to help run the project.

Share, Portsmouth

 Sharing is caring 💚 Portsmouth-based nonprofit Share is all about growing a culture of sharing and repairing. With Time After Time funds, they’ll be able to expand their current services (which include repairing small electricals, upskilling community members, and creating a rentable library of electronics) to host e-waste events, speaking with local residents to learn more about the barriers to reducing e-waste. These conversations will lead to important insights that will help Share develop future projects that make the repair and care of electronic items more accessible to community members.

Treverbyn Community Trust - Mobile Repair Cafe

🚚 Repairs on the way! 🚚 Treverbyn Community Trust are making repairs accessible for community members who might have limited access to such services. They’re partnering with repair experts St Austell Repair Café and converting an existing community asset, The Really Lovely Van, into a Mobile Repair Café that will offer to repair and/or redistribute electronic items that might otherwise go to waste. They’ll bring experts, volunteers, and the proper tools to each café stop, sharing knowledge about electrical repairing along the way. We can’t wait to see how far they'll go!