Rise

Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time in the middle of College Station, Texas with a whole lot of mid-Spring Texas heat.

I was down South to join The Women’s Bakery Chapter Group at A&M – TWB A&M – for a campus-wide awareness event called “Rise.” The concept was dreamed up over a year ago by Alayna Davis, the Chair & President of the Chapter, and intern for TWB. Alayna is helping us to build a national network of chapter groups – the first one being at Texas A&M.

The event was designed to bolster awareness of the chapter group, and the work of TWB. Additionally, the beautifully-made and powerful documentary “Girl Rising” was screened as a way to inform attendees about the plights for girls and education around the world, a cause very near and dear to my heart.

Following the screening, we hosted a TWB informational, where I explained the Bakery in the Box Model and the impact of our work in East Africa. I fielded lots of questions from curious students, teachers, and community members. Perhaps more profoundly, we also engaged in conversations about the importance of locally-driven work, and why sustainability depends on it.

After I spoke about TWB, the chapter group hosted two other speakers, Dr. Janet Marcantonio, and Dr. Henry Musoma, both professors and connections to A&M’s business and international programs. Dr. Marcantonio shared pictures from her Peace Corps Service in Gabon, and Dr. Musoma shared stories about growing up in Southern Africa, emphasizing the power that storytelling holds for all of us. He left the audience with this thought, “stories can liberate us…they can also oppress us. Be the one to tell you story.”

Following the event, humbled and amazed at the energy for TWB at the school, I received an email from an A&M student who had come to learn about The Women’s Bakery.

She wrote in her email,

“...the women involved in with TWB remind me a lot of my mother, who's main goal was to provide for her family. I love to see empowered women doing good, not only for their families, but for the good of their communities. I feel that TWB has given these women a network, a personal community of their own where they can rely on each other and feel powerful being women, I am all for that…I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to feel empowered, and that is why I love what TWB stands for.”

Now, that, my friends, is bread power.

Leadership in the Community

A good leader is someone who influences people in positive ways.

Leaders should include everyone in decision making processes. I believe that higher education contributes to good leadership because it provides the kind of skills needed for developing respect, communication, and planning for communities. 

I wish and believe that in the future, the women that TWB have trained will have sufficient knowledge and skills to lead in their own communities. Part of the reason I enjoy my work with TWB is that in addition to enhancing local leadership capacity, I am able to also grow in my own leadership abilities. To promote leadership, TWB provides education in Goal Setting and Personal Growth, Teamwork, Customer Service and Communication, Decision Making, Work Safety, Right and Responsibilities at Work, Marketing Skills, and Financial Planning.

In my role with TWB, I have received more experiences focused on leadership growth than those I got from previous job experiences. I have been with TWB now for 10 months and because of the TWB women we work with, as well as TWB staff, I have been encouraged to learn new ways to lead different groups of people. 

Doors are opening for everyone now, and I look forward to my own personal leadership development in TWB as well as leadership growth among the bakeries with work with.

What Cows Taught Me About Exclusion

In the wake of discussions centered on inclusion and what it means to be a part of a community that is inclusive, I have been reflecting on one of my own stories from my time living in Southwest Uganda.

From 2013 to 2014 I took a year off of graduate school to work as a Program Coordinator for a malnutrition project in Rukungiri, Uganda. We had a small team made up of nursing staff, nursing students, and volunteers and were tasked with providing inpatient and outpatient malnutrition services for Rukungiri District. As part of the program we inherited, we were managing two cows that were cared for by a herdsman. The cows had been approved to graze on pasture owned by the Catholic hospital that we were working at. The goal of having the cows was to produce milk to help feed severely and moderately malnourished inpatients.

One day one of the Catholic nuns told me they were kicking our cows off the pasture because they needed the land for their cows. An alarming proposition, considering milk from their cows was generating profits that went into their pockets. The Catholic church and the hospital then told us there was no other grazing land available and we would have to leave their land immediately.

As we were in the process of finding an alternative solution for our cows, the hospital administrator called me into his office and accused our herdsman of theft. I assured him that there had been no issues and asked for evidence that might support his accusation. He said it was verbal and the herdsman had to be fired on the spot.

Furious, but aware of my own role as an outsider in this community, I left to speak with the herdsman. Knowing that we had no other place to graze our cows and that we would likely have to sell them, we agreed on a few months severance for him and promised we would help him look for additional work. Alarmed once again, our herdsman told me, “You know I didn’t steal anything. They only want me gone because I am Protestant.” I was in shock. Over the next few months I learned of other similar situations in which the administration had removed staff based on religion.

In communities that hold high standards for equality, how are things like this happening? How will inclusion ever be possible if top leadership teams are sending a different message? Sadly, this has not been the end to stories such as this. We face these kinds of challenges in Rwanda and the U.S. as well.

However, I remain optimistic that TWB women value inclusion in their own bakery communities and are supporting one another despite their differences.

Thank you to our women in Remera who have shown me over the last few weeks how to stand up to those who don’t include others.

We need your strength today and everyday.