Seasons

To everything in life there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to sow and a time to reap. For The Women’s Bakery, this year has already held many seasons. 

In January, we sowed the seeds of recommitment to our social enterprise model and fully leaned into The Women’s Bakery 2.0. In February, we rolled up our sleeves and began kneading out more efficient bakery workflows and operations. These skills were honed in large thanks to Rob VanErven, baker extraordinaire, on loan from corporate partner Rademaker, BV. 

In March, we celebrated the strength of women with International Women’s Day. April brought a season of remembrance for the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. May ushered in a season of honoring the mothers in our lives, especially the bread winners at The Women’s Bakery. And June brought a season of loss and sadness. 

At the beginning of June, we learned from The Women’s Bakery’s first employee and Co-Founder, Julie Greene, that her time with the company was drawing to a close. The next week, our team was forced to grieve another loss - a strong bakery woman, Kayitesi, who died unexpectedly. 

Both of these women embody the spirit, values, and principles of The Women’s Bakery.

To Kayitesi, we say rest in peace strong woman. 

To Julie, we say thank you. Words are not enough to describe Julie’s incredible contributions to and impact on The Women’s Bakery. She has been an integral part of birthing, fostering, and building The Women’s Bakery to the place it is today. She gave her blood, sweat, and tears to ensure that the bakery women had every opportunity for gainful employment and social empowerment in their lives, and she committed herself to supplying communities with access to nutritious, affordable breads. The world is a better place because of this work. Julie, you are an incredible person. Thank you for leading us, working alongside us, and making us better. You will forever be a part of The Women’s Bakery and we will be forever grateful to and for you.

And so like The Byrds said, “To every season, [we] turn, turn, turn.” 

The Women's Bakery 2.0

2019 will be our fifth official year. I can hardly believe it as I write this. Five years!

For me, our fifth year marks the beginning of a new chapter for us: The Women’s Bakery 2.0. When I said this to Hilary, our Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) last week, she laughed and said, “I think it’s more like TWB 7.0.” And really, in many ways she is correct. Our journey up to this point has been a series of iterations – design, implement, tweak, repeat. These iterations, while tiring and often discouraging, have gotten us closer to where we are today, and closer to a tried and true model that works.

We started in 2014 with a dream – to build women-powered bakeries in East Africa. In many ways our dream has become a reality, and 2019 will serve to be the year of shoring up the stability of this dream.

To start, we have clearer direction in our mission – to build a women-centric social enterprise that gainfully employs women and provides access to quality breads in East Africa – which will aide better role designations, expectations and task execution. We have more tangible (and, frankly, attainable) goals – to enhance company culture, to socially and economically empower women, and to achieve profitability at our existing bakeries – which will aide in streamlining our operations and celebrating our successes.

We are recommitting ourselves to social enterprise, meaning we continue to place equal weight on social impact and financial return. Social enterprise is a balancing act and we are constantly re-calibrating. Often the for-profit and non-profit threads pull against each other, creating an ever-shifting landscape to equilibrate. But we’re inching closer and closer, harmonizing both sectors in small but powerful ways. That is why social enterprise is so important today – in a world that is seemingly increasingly polarized between profit and philanthropy, we are proving that business can and should be used as a tool for social good.

We have such a strong team – women at our bakeries, staff in our offices, interns, donors, and volunteers – and I am excited to watch them soar this year. I'm very proud to be part of something so much greater than myself. To be a part of a team that believes in the power of women and is committed to women’s autonomy.  

So, here’s to 2019, may this be a year of hope and strength, learning and success, commitment and celebration. We couldn’t have made it this far without you. Thank you for being part of our team and helping us build our dream of women-powered bakeries throughout East Africa – bread power!

Eat, Dance, Laugh, Share: How TWB Does Transitions

Just a few months ago, I sat in the backyard of The Women’s Bakery Flagship in Kigali and ate, danced, laughed and shared stories of our sometimes haphazard beginnings with the first group of women we trained in Rwanda, back in 2015. I was also surrounded by TWB Rwanda team members – some new and some who had been there from very early on as we built, learned through trial and error, pivoted, and grew as a company over our first several years. I was leaving for a year-long MBA program in the UK, and was filled with the standard jumble of emotions: eager to begin something new, sad to leave a team and friends who have made Rwanda one of my homes, and excited to see how new roles and opportunities within the company would be filled. Taking several steps back from everything I have helped to build and watched grow, change, and mature for the last four years was difficult, but I am so proud of how the team continues to rise to new challenges and puts their heart into TWB, making sure that our model works to create real, sustained impact.  

Last week, I again sat in the backyard of TWB’s Flagship in Kigali, and again I ate, danced, laughed, and shared stories with the team – this time to celebrate and send off Meg North. It is impossible to imagine where TWB would be today without the heart and soul of both Meg and Heather (who also recently transitioned from TWB) and the years that they poured themselves into building and shaping our model and mission. The last four years have been daunting, inspiring, challenging, and often exhausting. But there is an undeniable upward trajectory, and important lessons that have translated into greater growth and momentum for The Women’s Bakery.  

I am incredibly proud of everyone who has helped bring TWB to where we are now, and I am confident that amidst these current transitions, new and old team members alike will continue to raise the bar and further develop TWB. Here’s to the continued eating, dancing, laughing, sharing of stories, and to all of team TWB! 

#breadpower

Hope in These Troubled Times

by Margo Winslow

Traveling to Rwanda because of a personal relationship with one of The Women’s Bakery’s founders became a journey of inspiration and hopefulness. To understand the history of the country made me aware of, and have admiration for, the courage and perseverance of the Rwandan people.

Specifically, The Women’s Bakery is a remarkable idea that teaches concrete skills about business and nutrition, that enhances the participants self- esteem, and has the potential to spread around the world to people in poverty and despair.

I felt honored to have met the women and men who are making this program a success, and am so pleased to financially support The Women’s Bakery - which promotes health and happiness, and real hope, in these troubled times.

The Next Chapter of The Women's Bakery

In times of change we reflect on the past and plan for the future. Making sense of what we have been through is important in growing the business.  

I’ve spent the past three and a half years helping to build operations for The Women’s Bakery in Rwanda. It was more than just a job to me. Little pieces of me are intertwined in the fabric of the business such as obscure interview questions, my old books for sale in the Flagship café, and professional development courses on knitting. I feel lucky to have been a part of building a business that has had such a positive impact on the lives of women. And, I am even more excited that there are fabulous groups of women running all our bakeries and corporate operations.   

While I am sad to leave, I am confident and excited for what lies ahead for The Women’s Bakery. Change is the cornerstone of growth. And, I expect, impactful changes for the company moving forward. 

In the past three months we have been able to install Bakery Operations Managers and Program Managers at our Gicumbi, Kagina, and Kigali bakeries. We have successfully transitioned a Program Manager to Deputy Director of Operations. And, five out of seven Bakery Operations Managers, Program Managers, and operations staff have been working at The Women’s Bakery for more than a year. They are well equipped to lead The Women’s Bakery into its next chapter of growth. 

Some things our supporters in the U.S. and customers in Rwanda can look forward to in our next chapter include advanced inventory tracking systems, creative marketing tactics, enhanced skills development for Bakery Operations Managers, and improved ovens and mixers to cut production time.  

What will make all these things possible is The Women’s Bakery team. And, I couldn’t be more excited for the hardworking and passionate team we have in place and for the contributions they will make. Let the business rise #breadpower.

Culture - What Does That Mean at TWB?

In graduate school I often heard the questions: “What is culture? What does it mean? How do you define it? Does America have it?” Interviewing and onboarding with The Women’s Bakery it is a word I have been hearing often again. So what is it? What does it mean? And how does an organization working in multiple countries, like The Women’s Bakery, build a culture that bridges the gap between very different backgrounds, socio-economics statuses, religions, ethnicities, etc.?

Merriam Webster gives it multiple definitions. For the purpose of this article, I am working from the premise that culture is “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization”. When you put it this way, to me it seems The Women’s Bakery has this down pat.

But, what does that mean? What are those shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices? In my first couple of weeks with The Women’s Bakery, I have seen those beliefs as striving for gender equality, women’s empowerment, personal and professional growth opportunities for all employees, accountability to each other and to the greater good, and a determination to meet each day with grit and grace.

How does that translate across countries, time zones, and languages? Good question! So far, I am experiencing that as lots of Facetime, lots of question asking and asking people to repeat things, and plenty of slowing down to ensure that each woman’s voice is heard. It is my humble opinion, that culture is where the rubber meets the road. It is the place where mission and meaning meet. To say TWB builds bakeries that sustainably employ women and enhance community nutrition is one thing. To build bakeries that sustainably employ women and enhance community nutrition with integrity and women’s involvement is an entirely different thing. This last thing is truly what culture is about.

Bread Knowledge

As I reflect on my last three years helping to build The Women’s Bakery operations in Rwanda, I have been thinking about the knowledge I have gained and the lessons I have learned.

I know that this knowledge will only be useful to the business if I can successfully transfer it to my colleagues As a result, I have begun to focus on training. My days are now filled with one-hour blocks to teach a variety of topics such as: how to process employee income and social security taxes, how to build pivot tables in excel, how to create a company policy, how to create employee contracts, and how to purchase and enroll employees in health insurance. I have always thought of myself as a horrible teacher. So, this process is teaching me yet another lesson – how to become a better teacher.

We have to acknowledge that a single task that may take us one hour might take five hours of training and countless follow-up questions before someone else may be able to master it. When we budget our time, we often fail to budget the appropriate amount of time it takes to actually train and pass off a single task. But, we have to. We have to invest in training our team members, especially in times of transition to ensure that operations can continue smoothly.

I am excited to pass on the knowledge I have of our operations to my colleagues and I am excited for the business growth that will follow.

I am confident that my colleagues will take what we have built and the lessons we have learned to build better systems and make more sound decisions that will make the business grow bigger and stronger than we ever could have imagined when we started.

This is bread knowledge; this is #breadpower.

Building the Plane

At The Women’s Bakery, I work with an incredible team of individuals. Singular people represent entire departments of our business, from Human Resources to Finance to IT to Logistics and Operations, launching and supporting bakeries all over East Africa.

Many of you may have heard the expression “building the plane as you fly it.” I, quite frankly, could suggest that that expresssion sums up a large majority of my daily experiences at The Women’s Bakery in Kigali, Rwanda. As the Program Manager for our Kigali Flagship Bakery and Café, I, along with our renaissance team, have been building our plane as we go. From design and menu to operations systems, accounting systems, inventory systems, customer care manuals and standards, health intervention policies, protocol for working with other businesses, tour packages,  the list continues for days as to the elements of our Flagship plane that we continue to grow, expand and invest in.  

It’s really quite an exciting time to be a part of The Women’s Bakery. Our goals right now include focusing on proving our model and reaching profitability at all of the bakeries we own. It’s seemingly an ever chagning target with one very real win in mind—to provide truly sustainable, gainful employment for women. Bakeries are our medium, good business is our standard, and women’s empowerment is our end game. But that takes time, resources, management, skills transfer, systems, cashflows—the extent of which I might say has surprised us all.

But here’s the best silver lining there is—by building the plane as we fly it, we get to build the best darn businesses possible as well as develop and advance our own professional skills. We are truly the experts in the nitty gritty. We are the pilots who never lack the investment or zeal to see the manufacturing of this beast through. We bust through barriers on a daily basis as we seek to build around the details that unfold. We adapt, innovate, and lead together. As we climb in altitude,  we are confident that an entire team of women (and men) will fly in the sleekest, cutting edge plane on the market, bursting through the clouds with resilience and pride.

Entrepreneurship requires grit, courage and patience. As a business, we must continue to build, even when we can’t find the parts or the entire model shifts (plane, business, or otherwise).  

What is your #breadpower? What social impact are you passionate about that requires you to build your own plane? 

 Let the women of The Women’s Bakery inspire you—it can be done. It is being done. We may not have always been experts in plane (or bakery) building, but our team has worked hard in creating the plane you see today. It’s a journey none of us may have expected, but here we are flying in it.

Where will your plane take you?  

It's Going to Go Big

Written by Jill Ritchot, Intern for TWB

In November 2017, I finalized plans to volunteer with The Women’s Bakery in Rwanda. My excitement was palpable. As part of the MovingWorlds Institute fellowship program that had begun in June, I had spent months looking for the right project fit. Suddenly everything had fallen into place; an impactful opportunity to work with and for women, join an engaged and dynamic team, and offer my communications and marketing skills.

I exhaled a deep sigh of relief and felt the eagerness and nervousness begin to bubble up as I thought about what the next few months would bring. I was intrigued by the organization’s mission, had spoken to Heather and Meg, and wanted to learn more. As my departure date approached, I couldn’t wait to see, how is bread powerful?

I stepped off the plane in Kigali at the end of January to begin my three-month project, aiming to create a communications and marketing strategy for the new flagship café. I felt inspired to be jumping in at such an exciting time as the bakery and office moved to the new flagship location and café renovations began. In my first discussions with Meg and Fran on arrival, I quickly saw that it was a fast-paced and lively environment with a diverse, adaptable, and passionate team.

I started by meeting with team members to learn more about who they see as The Women’s Bakery’s customers and what they see as the future of the organization. I was immediately moved by what I heard, “the future is bright”; “it’s going to go big”; “our bread is for everyone”; “when I started, I was teaching the women, now they are teaching me”. I felt fueled to keep digging in and learning more about The Women’s Bakery and our customers.

Together, Fran, Rachel and I conducted market research at three bakery locations.

We began by talking to the people who know our customers best – the women who bake and sell The Women’s Bakery bread every day.  I quickly learned how varied the customers were from location to location and the key differences between what Rwandans and expats look for when buying bread. We continued to build on the team’s and women’s knowledge by doing interviews, surveys, and focus groups with current and potential future customers to explore more. What we discovered is that while there is a lot of diversity in who buys The Women’s Bakery bread, there are also some clear uniting preferences: taste, nutrition, and freshness. That, and much more, is exactly what The Women’s Bakery offers.

I got the chance to see how the women bake the delicious, nutritious and fresh bread every day when I joined the team in the kitchen to learn how to make it. The women’s expertise and confidence in what they do and their patience as they taught us was inspiring. Although we don’t all speak the same language, the joy, laughter, and strength in the kitchen that day both humbled and invigorated me.  It is not just bread rising in the bakery; it is community and empowerment.

As I come towards the end of my time with The Women’s Bakery and armed with our growing customer knowledge, I am working on a variety of marketing tools and strategies with Fran to get the message out. Loud. We are strong women baking bread. Our bread is packed with vitamins, nutrients, and protein.  And in my time in Kigali, I have seen that a loaf of bread truly can inspire, nourish communities, and spark economies.

Now that’s bread power.