Second life for broken items | Star Golden Hearts Award 2025 - video Dailymotion

The Star

While most throw away their broken items without a second thought, for Johnson Lam each broken item is a chance to fix not just the item itself but also the culture of over-consumerism in the country.  Understanding that repairing items alone would not truly “fix” society, Lam, 45, founded KakiRepair in 2017, a grassroots movement dedicated to changing the way Malaysians view broken belongings.  For his noble efforts, Lam is named as one of the 10 winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2025, an annual award by The Star that honours everyday Malaysian unsung heroes.  For more details, visit https://www.sgha.com.my/  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Johnson Lam from Kaki Repair.

00:02I'm the winner of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2025.

00:06Although this award, I'm the recipient.

00:08However, this award goes to everyone out there

00:11who does repair and fix it.

00:13Three things that we don't know how to repair,

00:31but each other we know how to repair and help out each other, okay?

00:34I'm a corporate leader by profession and a community leader by passion.

00:40So I grew up from a village

00:42and that time, it's not easy for us to just buy whatever we want, right?

00:46So first of it is affordability, second is availability.

00:50So even since young, usually I just gather resources around us

00:55and start to build stuff.

00:56I pick up like items, broken items from the neighborhood,

01:00repair it to become a usable stuff, right?

01:03So from there, I started to realize that

01:05actually in Malaysia, there's a lot of resources around us.

01:08We can actually gather and repair and fix stuff

01:11and then, you know, to prolong life span of stuff or to get items.

01:15But I also realized that today's education and society,

01:20we are very consumer society.

01:23We use, spoil already, we just throw away.

01:26So then, not a lot of people had this motivation or even the know-how to repair stuff.

01:33That actually motivated me to start Kaki Repair.

01:35I started Kaki Repair back in Juli 2017, okay.

01:43So during that time, my mission was very simple.

01:46I just want to encourage people to not throw broken things away,

01:51but at least try to come out and learn how to repair it first.

01:55So my mission and vision is for people to come out, collaborate,

01:59and then learn from each other how to repair stuff.

02:03So far, all this never changed since the inception.

02:06However, there's one focus that we actually sort of like move the direction towards.

02:12I realized that it is not just about fixing things.

02:15It is also about fixing mindset.

02:18After I talked to many, many people on the question of why you don't repair things,

02:24people always come out with these three, I would say, reasons slash excuses.

02:29People will say there's no tools, there's no space to repair,

02:32and there's no expertise, I don't know how to repair.

02:35So a session of Kaki Repair has all these three,

02:38so there's no more excuses for people to not to repair.

02:41It was always self-funded since the inception back in 2017,

02:46but today, there's a lot of other brands, corporate and even community partners

02:51that realize that this is very important, so they help out.

02:54Okay, so sometimes they come, they sponsor some tools,

02:57they sponsor some parts, okay, and they fund the whole movement itself.

03:01And the rest of it, I self-funded using Kaki DIY's platform,

03:05because I host repair videos, okay, product videos on YouTube,

03:10and the monetization actually helps to keep all of this running.

03:13I've seen my video talking about the difference in Ender 3,

03:18Ender 3 Pro, and Ender 3 Version 2.

03:22So Kaki Repair is a totally free movement.

03:25I've been making sure that it's like that since the day of inception.

03:29So basically, everyone is a volunteer, including myself.

03:32However, when there's funding needed, for example, like this truck going around Malaysia,

03:37usually I self-funded myself, I will never take payment from participants,

03:44because the whole concept is around when we try to go out and do something,

03:50whenever there's a payment, usually there's a barrier of entry, right?

03:55So I wanted more impact rather than profitability,

03:58so that's why I kept it to be that way.

04:00Today, there's many Kaki Repair happening everywhere.

04:04They just go on and start their own community,

04:07and they start their own space.

04:08Everyone chip in, whether it's tools, whether it's manpower and all that,

04:13and it has been growing ever since like that.

04:16We have around 160 over 1,000 members.

04:19Everyone is just helping out each other,

04:21and hundreds of items have been fixed every other day.

04:25Basically, statistics that I kept was up until COVID,

04:28we fixed around 50,000 ringgit worth of products.

04:32During the whole COVID season, just online alone,

04:36we fixed like nearly 200,000, 300,000 ringgit worth of items,

04:41and then the best result that we got,

04:43it was after COVID, and there was this huge flood in Taman Serin Mode.

04:49So the Kaki Repair volunteers went out and helped to fix the flooded items,

04:54and in just that four days alone, we fixed 300,000 worth of items, okay?

05:00And that was really a very good validation,

05:02that not just communities learn how to repair their own stuff,

05:07but with the skills that they have,

05:09we all can go out and contribute to the society as well.

05:13Okay, but there's one more thing I need to show you.

05:15Okay.

05:16Okay, see if you wipe it clean.

05:20Tissue pepper.

05:21Yeah, they got a lot of tissue pepper.

05:22Okay.

05:23Yay!

05:24The Star Golden Hearts Award actually helped me a lot is because

05:28one, it really validated that this movement is showing impact,

05:33and I'm really grateful for that.

05:34It's because all this while,

05:36sometimes I felt that this movement is very small,

05:39sometimes I felt that,

05:41are we doing enough to move the community and the society?

05:46This is really a great validation,

05:48that is given to myself, my team,

05:50and everyone in Kaki Repair.

05:53And I hope that with this recognition and this publicity,

05:58more people will self-start and do repair in their own little community,

06:04group and villages.

06:06so

06:10gute

06:11god

06:16cheon

06:18cheon

06:20cheon

06:21cheon

06:24cheon

06:26cheon

Second life for broken items | Star Golden Hearts Award 2025

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