It was a dripping tap that spurred Mandy Gosetti to start a not-for-profit organisation teaching basic home maintenance skills.

After her husband, Laurie, died in 2014, she realised he had been the one who fixed things around the house: changing tap washers, fixing holes in the wall. She didn’t know how. He also did most of the cooking.

Tapping into skills: Mandy Gosetti, right, founder of the I’m Still Learning DIY program with tutor Julie Wacker, left, and student Sue Irving, centre.Credit:Darrian Traynor

Gosetti once asked a service station attendant to show her how to put air in her car tyres.

“He said, ‘sorry I can’t come out because I have to stay here behind the counter’,” Gosetti said. “It was so frustrating.

“I thought for two years that I was the only person in the world who didn’t know how to do these things,” she said. “And I thought I was plain silly because I didn’t know.”

After talking with friends, Gosetti, from Oak Park in Melbourne’s north, realised that there were other people – including widows and widowers, divorcees and singles – who were in dire need of do-it-yourself skills.

Sue Irving, front, can now change a tap washer after doing a DIY course founded by Mandy Gosetti, rear.Credit:Darrian Traynor

In 2017, as a New Year’s resolution, Gosetti asked the local council to help her develop her idea for a grassroots DIY tutoring program.

She started I’m Still Learning in August that year, tapping retired tradies and amateur DIY enthusiasts as volunteer tutors and aided by a $13,000 Foundation Day grant from real-estate firm Nelson Alexander.

Since then, more than 400 people have completed courses in neighbourhood houses, schools and libraries in Melbourne’s north and west.

More than 100 people are on the waiting list and there are plans to expand the program elsewhere in Melbourne. It is seeking sponsors and volunteers.

Students practising replacing broken tiles in an I’m Still Learning class at Avondale Heights library.Credit:I’m Still Learning

The courses are often free but one council that hosted it charged a small fee. The car course costs a flat $30.

The eight-week home maintenance course teaches people how to fix a dripping tap, use a power drill, replace broken tiles, repair cracks in plaster, paint and build a tool box.

The six-week car course includes changing tyres, oil and wiper blades, how to tell if your car is roadworthy and how the engine works.

The six-week cooking course covers grilling fish and making stew and stir fries.

I’m Still Learning tutor Julie Wacker, who is now a counsellor but was a plumber in her native Germany, said that as a child, her sailor father was often away. She learned maintenance from necessity.

Teaching how to fix a tap, she instructs people on turning off the mains water first, and what tools and parts are needed. She also counsels that for jobs such as blocked toilets, it’s best to call a professional.

Wacker says students tell her they’ve felt intimidated in hardware stores and that the course gives them the confidence to order tools and parts.

“It’s easily done,” she said, of skills such as changing a tap washer. “They don’t need someone else to come and do it for them. But before, no one had ever told them how to, so they felt they were not able to.”

Widow Sue Irving, 65, of Jacana, said the home maintenance course gave her the confidence to remove and replace a rotting letterbox, to fix a hole in a wall and to replace grouting in her bathroom.

She said it had been hard to find plumbers who would come out to change a washer – it was too small a job – and if they would, it was expensive.

She made friends with fellow students in the same situation. The course bolstered her sense of independence, making her unafraid to ask questions of tradies.

“But I’m happy to do the things that I can do, myself.”

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