The Maintainers Quarterly-ish Newsletter
Spring 2023: Please welcome the Maintainers Movement Fellows!
Dear Maintainers,
Welcome to our very first Substack newsletter! We were excited to make the switch to this new platform. The Maintainers Newsletter will continue to be a no-cost offering, and this platform allows for us to receive contributions, should you wish to do so.
This newsletter is also celebratory as we are delighted to welcome the 2023 Maintainers Movement Fellows! You can learn more about Mathew, Himani, Jennah and Terra below. We were humbled by the quality of applications, and truly appreciate the time everyone put into sharing and engaging with this opportunity. Rest assured, there are many beautiful maintenance projects happening around the globe.
Take care,
The Maintainers Team
Welcome 2023 Maintainers Movement Fellows
The 2023 Maintainers Movement Fellows will partner with The Maintainers to advance our vision for a more caring and well-maintained world. We have recruited four fellows this year, each of which will focus on one of the following pathways:
Blog Post
In celebration of this year’s Fellowship launch, we wanted to share an excerpt from Program Manager Lauren Dapena Fraiz’s blog post: The Maintainers Fellowships – a model to understand localized practices of maintenance, repair and care.
“Interdisciplinary work is sometimes at risk of becoming fragmented and discordant, however, the concept of maintenance is so vast that it seems limiting to only look at it from a singular lens. In addition, separating people by fields of expertise can sometimes create detached intellectual bubbles. We believe there is value in putting people together in the same virtual room that would have not shared a space otherwise.”
Virtual Event Series
Earlier this year we launched our first events series, Moving Toward Maintenance, a 3-part “how-to” workshops exploring what maintenance practices look like for one self, for community, and larger movements. Our hope is that those who attend come away with a sense of what a “first step” might look like to better maintain ourselves, our communities, and larger movements.
Up next, on Friday, June 2nd, we will be exploring questions around maintaining community. We have gathered Shelby Seier from All Kinds Accessibility Consulting, Kalmia Strong from Public Space One, and Purna Sarkar from Repair Cafe Bengaluru to share their perspectives.
Maintaining Self: April 7, 2023. Takeaway Resources and recording ⤵
Maintaining Community: June 2, 2023. Register Here.
Maintaining Movements: Stay tuned!
Monthly Maintenance Sessions
Explore this idea and get your maintenance tasks done by setting aside two hours in your calendar with us. This is a casual event, where participants join to share about their maintenance projects, and then do their maintenance projects quietly in community, together. Our next session is June 16th at 2 PM EST.
Maintainers in the News
For all our community members interested in international sustainability policies: Check out this upcoming workshop led by our partners at @VR_Ex_Change as part of the SRI 2023 Conference in Panama. You can learn more about the network by watching this 3 minute video, linked here.
The pandemic unleashed competing economic forces that transformed our world. How did ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) community members fare financially? Our friends at United for ALICE #UnitedForALICE recently launched its new U.S. Report, “ALICE in the Crosscurrents,” about the impact of these forces on struggling households. Read the report here.
Check out this update from our friends with the Right to Repair movement: "‘Right to Repair’ Is Gaining Momentum": A bipartisan group of House members — who seldom agree on anything among themselves — has introduced a pro-consumer, pro-market bill to lower repair prices.