blog

March is Women's Month. This is a time to recognize the unique contributions women all over the world have made to their communities and to society. When a woman has access to social and economic opportunity, the world benefit.

My personal life is a testimony to what happens when you invest in women. I come from a very humble background, similar to that of our bakers. I was born and raised in a slum in Nairobi called Kawangware. Opportunity and access to education has changed the course of both my life and the life of my child. This is the same impact that I see at The Women’s Bakery. The impact is not just for an individual, it is generational.

At The Women’s Bakery we take pride in the work that our teams do collectively to create lasting social impact. Crucial to these efforts is taking care of our team members through our Whole Woman Programming. While we are not the first to use this concept, we like to think that our unique programming redefines the workplace for women - by women - in a way that inspires others to follow suit.

We are proud to share that the One Bread Project (OBP) is growing! In our most recent round of data collection at the schools participating in the OBP we learned that we are serving over 6,000 students daily. This number is over triple the number of students we served this time last year. While the OBP has created a lot of buzz around the TWB community in recent years, how is it actually working? Hint: It’s increasing classroom attendance and attentiveness!

The Women’s Bakery is expanding our team! We are happy to announce that we are joined by three new team members who will help launch TWB towards even more success in 2022. Maureen Mutoni joins us as the Flagship Bakery Manager, Emmanuel Mbarushimana is our new Finance Assistant, and Joel Shyaka steps in as our Monitoring & Evaluation Associate. We are so excited to welcome them to the team!

We are excited to share that our bakery in Ruyenzi has moved to a new space. The new location offers a larger space and layout that is better equipped to serve our growing business. The bakery in Ruyenzi is currently open for pickup and delivery orders from the public and caters to schools in the area through The One Bread Project. Take a virtual tour with us to see our new bakery space in Ruyenzi!

Though the calendar year is coming to an end, quarter four marks a new beginning for The Women’s Bakery. Between our new strategic sales partnerships and the new school year for the One Bread Project, we are now busier than ever! With these new experiences comes a new learning curve, but our team has maintained high spirits and we are up for the challenges that come our way! Learn more about how we are stepping up to our new sales demands.

At The Women’s Bakery, we recognize and value that women wear different hats throughout their lives. We know the importance of being present in each of these roles and we never want to put a woman in the position of having to choose between these roles, especially when it comes to the workplace and being a mom. As a result, we are committed to changing the workplace for women, by women - namely through our Baby Houses.

Recently, TWB hosted our first Fall Tea Time series to connect supporters around the world with our team in Rwanda to learn more about TWB. While our series is now over, we recorded each of our presentations for those who want to watch, share, or learn more. Miss our Fall Tea Time series? Have no fear, we have them all on video!

At The Women's Bakery, we pride ourselves in being resilient and learning from our challenges. While we have had many successes since our start, we have also had our share of failures. We believe that sharing these low points is just as important as sharing our victories with the TWB community. Check out what our founder and CEO, Markey Culver, has to say about failing fearlessly over the years.

At The Women’s Bakery we take pride in prioritizing the mental, emotional, and physical health of all of our team members. While we often talk about Whole Woman Programming and our holistic services for our team of strong women, our team often finds itself checking in with one another to make sure that we are actually staying true to our values and adjusting to the current climate. Read on to see the latest measures our team has taken to ensure that we are staying true to our mission.

Our Tea Time Series is back this Fall! Throughout this Series, we will connect you with several of our Rwanda-based team leaders. Our Tea Time Series will consist of three 30-minute Zoom sessions, each on a different topic of interest. Join us to hear more about what growth, social impact, and operations have looked like at The Women’s Bakery over the last few months and what we envision as we prepare for the New Year!

At The Women's Bakery, we pride ourselves in being resilient and learning from our challenges. While we have had many successes since our start, we have also had our share of failures. We believe that sharing these low points is just as important as sharing our victories with the TWB community. Check out what our founder and CEO, Markey Culver, has to say about failing fearlessly over the years.

The Women’s Bakery is growing! We are happy to announce that we are joined by two new management team members. Pauline Kariuki, who comes to us with 15 years of bakery operations experience, will be serving as our new Director of Operations. Alice Kirera, who joins us with bakery management and administration experience, is our new Flagship Bakery Manager. We are so excited to welcome Pauline and Alice to the team.

Earlier this summer our CEO & Founder, Markey Culver, attended the annual Bakery Equipment Manufacturing Association (BEMA) Convention with our Development and Communications Director, Madeleine Binsfrahm. Markey and Madeleine were joined virtually by our South Regional Manager, Tessa Soni, for a special presentation updating BEMA members on what TWB has been up to over the past year. Read on to hear more about their takeaways from the meeting.

Did you know that our school feeding program, the One Bread Project (OBP), serves over 3,000 children each day? Thanks to a generous grant from Abbott Fund, The Women's Bakery has partnered with five schools over the past year to bring our protein packed breads to school children in the Gicubmi District. Read on to find out about what impact the OBP has on students in the classroom.

At The Women's Bakery, we pride ourselves in being resilient and learning from our challenges. While we have had many successes since our start, we have also had our share of failures. We believe that sharing these low points is just as important as sharing our victories with the TWB community. Check out what our founder and CEO, Markey Culver, has to say about failing fearlessly over the years.

At The Women's Bakery, we are committed to sustainability in different ways every day of the year. This past year, we rebranded our packaging making it more environmentally friendly. Learn more about our efforts to promote environmentally sustainable practices in our bakery operations here!

We are so excited to announce our Spring Tea Time Series! Throughout this series we hope to connect you with several of our team leaders based in Rwanda. Our Tea Time Series will consist of three 30-minute Zoom sessions, each on a different topic of interest.

At the Women’s Bakery, we are committed to celebrating women all day, everyday! Since this month is International Women’s Month, we would like to recognize the hard work of our whole team and the community of strong women that support our efforts internationally year round! Find out how we are celebrating here.

In 2020, the whole world witnessed disruptions to the global supply chain. The cost of staple goods were influx, and things that we took for granted at the grocery store - like yeast - were suddenly missing from the shelves. These shortages led The Women’s Bakery to look inwards and assess our inventory. As a result, we identified and streamlined our processes on procuring ingredients in bulk by thinking on our feet and adapting to a new normal!

Alongside education and health, we have prioritized a focus on economic opportunity as a gateway to women’s empowerment. Over the years, The Women’s Bakery has implemented several initiatives to create economic opportunities, such as ensuring that every single woman has a bank account. Read more about what we covered at the latest financial literacy training here!

In 2020, The Women’s Bakery sold over 712,000 units of bread! Despite the challenges that the year brought forth and weeks of bakery closures, we shattered many of our own records. Find out how many kilograms of bread equates to 712,000 units by reading the full story!

The start of the new year brought new restrictions in Rwanda. The Women’s Bakery continues to adjust to ensure we can serve our nutritious, affordable bread to local communities. Read about Kigali being designated an essential business and how we’ve adapted to the operating climate in 2021.

Yvonne takes a moment to celebrate the extraordinary strides of the social impact team, such as the buildout of baby houses to support working moms, the provision of health insurance, and financial training programs. These initiatives have opened (previously inaccessible) doors of opportunity for strong women baking bread.

As a Kigali native and a young leader within a women-centered organization, Francoise is inspired daily by the operations growth her team continues to achieve and by the social impact The Women’s Bakery is having on Rwandan women. In her own words, Francoise shares the ways her team demonstrates the immeasurable impact empowered women have on their communities.

Gicumbi Program Manager, Charlotte, reflects on the opportunities gainful employment has presented in her and other bakers' lives, including the ability to pay for their children's daily meals, school fees, and becoming a mirror of possibility for her 5-year-old daughter, Teta. "Teta calls me a 'Superhero Mom'", Charlotte writes. And this is why.

After attending college abroad, Tessa returned to Rwanda, joined The Women’s Bakery and now leads the ambitous Ruyenzi bakery team. Tessa “see[s] the Ruyenzi bakery being a model of success within The Women’s Bakery”. Learn how Ruyenzi has come to thrive.

At The Women’s Bakery, we are always looking to expand our impact and refine our bakery model. This includes process improvement and increasing output at each of our bakeries. We are deeply grateful to have Rademaker’s Rob van Erven share his expertise with TWB and help us do just this. Hear from our Program Manager’s about the impact of Rob’s contributions.