Our Team
Mathew Lubari
Founder
Sergio Almerares
Advisor
Artur Donaldson
Advisor
Mathew Lubari
Mathew was born and grew up in South Sudan and studied Diploma in Information Technology (IT) at the International University of East Africa (Kampala) Uganda. He is a self-driven and trained repairer, maker, mentor and advocate for repair, Open Technology, gender inclusion and diversity.
He loves repairing stuff and at the age of 12, was inspired by his dad who is a medical personnel but also loves repairing things. he watched him repair his radios and was impressed but unfortunately his dad could not repair most of them due to lack of knowledge and skills which challenged Mathew to learn and teach people how to repair their items.
Additionally in early 2013 he was upset when he got locked out of his phone and could not access apps and did not know how to fix the problem. So he took his phone to a technician, but was not allowed to watch while the technician repaired it. He went out, but stood in a place where he could see how the technician was fixing the problem. After he paid him, set out to learn how to do it himself. He succeeded in locking and unlocking it. Later, his laptop broke down and couldn't power on, so he took it to a technician who tried fixing it but failed. But instead of giving him back his laptop in good shape, he(the technician) had removed some of the parts like the hard drive disk, RAM, and the network card. Only after taking it to an Indian technician did Mathew learn that these parts had been removed. Understandably, this angered him and it also made him want to learn and be able to teach people how to repair things and make repair open, which includes teaching them to be ethical while providing repair services.
In 2016, he fled his country with a zip lock of repair tools (a screwdriver, a cutter and a toothbrush) and started repairing but never knew repair protects the environment by reducing carbon emissions and landfill until 2021 when he joined the Restarters community, a global forum for repairers.
The idea of bridging the gap in repair of everyday items and making repair open led to the founding of the CC4D with his two colleagues Maliamungu Richard and Dawa Edina. His roles at the CC4D include helping develop the repair café and women inclusion in tech/repair culture programs.
In his free time, he enjoys explorative travel, research, and visits his fruit trees farm.
Sergio Almerares
I was born in 1970, with an older brother and a younger sister. My sister was born with an important disease, and she died, blocked in his bed, in 2020. My father was a truck driver with multiple skills and creativity. He maintained his truck at the highest level and made repairs at home. He was able to use his skilled hands on the hydraulic system, heating boilers and radiators, electrical connections, and even walls and structures. He was multitasking, but at the end of his life, myasthenia made him unable to do all that he was used to doing at his best. I have studied electronics and informatics, and now I work as an informatic in an international electronics microchip company. I first became aware of the restart project several years ago, and since then, I have been a Restarter in Milan and a Right to Repair activist. I was at the first FixFest in London, the second in Berlin, and the third in Brussels, where I met Mathew. I was a volunteer to help people with Salesians in Ethiopia and to reduce Digital Divide, for STFoundation, in Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Brazil. I am a maker, a Linux and free software estimator, and would like to contribute with my knowledge and expertise to a better world. I like Mathew's projects and how he is working on it. Would like to help him and do something similar in Italy. Actually, I am quite busy with a project for people with hearing loss and another for blind persons. I am married, with three wonderful sons, two boys and a girl who are also involved in good projects, caring for other people
Artur Donaldson
I am Artur Donaldson from the UK. I work as a data engineer in environmental sustainability based in The Netherlands and am an advisor to Community Creativity for Development (CC4D). I started collaborating with CC4D after meeting Mathew virtually through a repair diary project in 2020. A highlight of recent years was meeting Mathew in person in 2022. Mathew is a very sincere, hard-working and determined community leader. It has been a privilege to work with him on grant proposals, media content and raising awareness. The work done by CC4D in access to repair, skills and education relevant to the refugee context is truly inspiring. I hope that by maintaining international and domestic support for CC4D it will help to strengthen the rights of refugees in Uganda and elsewhere to equitable access to technology, repair facilities and knowledge regardless of origin or gender. By giving refugees, displaced persons and people of low-income the access to repair and tech skills, it contributes to social resilience of communities and to the financial development of the host country. Repair communities and professions help integrate people and give them agency. Moreover, technical skills are transferable and may be pivotal in rebuilding countries and regions from which people and communities are displaced.