Free Your Stuff
View(s):Whilst spending a few months living in Berlin, Munira Mutaher came across a Facebook group called ‘Free Your Stuff’, dedicated to all of those who tend to hold on to things they may never use, which might be more useful for someone else. This proved to be helpful, since she was in the city for only three months and didn’t want to spend a lot buying all the basics.
Art work by Ruwangi Amarasinghe
“There are so many expats and people moving in and out of Colombo and it only makes sense to have a space where you can just pass some of the basic items forward,” she tells us. This led her to start ‘Free Your Stuff Colombo’ in 2016 when she returned to Sri Lanka.
A member would have two options – putting up a ‘Give’ post or a ‘Need’ post where the idea is give all you can, take only what you need. The ‘Giver’ can decide who they’d like to give it to, arrange the exchange and that’s about it. There’s nothing sold on the group.
“There are no strings attached, people need to understand that these are pre-loved items and for the most part, there’s a culture of respectful exchange,” she says.
Since going live, Free Your Stuff Colombo has grown. Today it includes over 2,000 members, with a significant number of active members.
She explains there’s a nice sense of community that’s grown with people stepping in to moderate, promote and support when needed.
As she puts it, secondhand goods are critical in a system where the lifeline of products are intentionally produced to break or crash sooner.
Secondhand systems nudge people to start thinking about the things they own a bit differently – “necessity, utility, durability. Do I really need it, how can it further me/my lifestyle and how long is it realistically going to last for?”
One could become a member of the group via their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/freeyourstuffCMB/