TWB's Next Big Ad(venture)

by: McKenna Pullen, U.S. Programs Intern

I was full of emotions on the first day of my internship with The Women’s Bakery. I felt so fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to work with TWB, but, admittedly I knew little about how the team operated. Like most organizations, TWB looked amazing on paper, but what would it be like to work there?

Within a few minutes of beginning orientation, I knew that this place was even better than I could have imagined. Not only are these women doing incredible work, they are also extremely supportive, encouraging, and the one of the most hard-working groups I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside.

As the U.S. Programs Intern, my position exists to help adapt TWB’s East Africa model for refugee and immigrant women in Denver, Colorado. Through this position I’ve gotten to know how TWB functions on multiple levels. I haven’t had the opportunity to visit any of the bakeries (yet!), but it’s easy to see why this program is so successful, merely from reading reports about outcomes. I love being a part of an organization that fundamentally believes in the power of women, community, and of course, baking. Working to develop programs in Denver has also enabled me to see my own community in a new light, and begin focusing on the strengths and assets of individuals.

TWB inspires hope wherever they go. I am excited to be a part of that energy and positive momentum in Denver. Our program will provide opportunities for women to thrive in the United States, learning tangible, marketable skills, while building and strengthening essential social networks.

TWB will foster a nurturing and supportive environment, creating space for women to live healthy, successful lives. I know it will have a profound impact on the lives of all women who enter future training programs. I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity to work with TWB, and so proud of the work they already do. 

Piloting TWB in the Refugee Community

Since I was young, I have been both passionate and curious about the process of adapting cultural experiences into new environments. This doesn’t always necessitate transcontinental travel – sometimes our most profound cross-cultural experiences happen in the migration between neighborhoods, schools, churches and from varying social, familial, food, educational, and work experiences.

TWB’s organization in Rwanda incorporates cross-cultural engagement daily as our team partners with Rwandans to ensure sound production, sales, and growth.

Since October, TWB has worked closely with the African Community Center in Denver as we have begun to expand our programming to the U.S. We are currently piloting a training program with seven refugee women to better understand how our work is both relevant and needed in the context of the U.S.

Per a state-issued report on foreign born residents, 2,199 refugees were resettled in Colorado in 2013, mostly from East Asian countries.[1] Currently, Over 1/6 of Denver’s population is considered either refugee or immigrant. In response to a growing need, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) launched operations in Denver to help provide resettlement and integration services for new individuals to the United States – especially those coming from crisis.

Currently, with ACC, our training has been tailored for refugee-specific participants. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a refugee is a person, “who has left her country of origin and is unable to or unwilling to return” for a fear of persecution. ACC has focused on this population as international conflict has grown across the world in the past decade and as more refugees have fled to safety in the U.S.

While ACC can aid in the services necessary for community establishment (housing, cultural orientation, school enrollment, etc.), the resettlement agency also looks to partner with other non-governmental organizations to assist with additional employment, education, and resource-based support for new community members.

TWB is enthusiastic and ready to fill this demand for partnership; our hope is that new TWB programming can help in this process, providing additional educational, training and work-readiness opportunities for refugees in Colorado, especially women.

In our pilot program, TWB trains a small women’s group for two hours each week. Recipe reading, budgeting, practical baking skills, nutrition education, and tips for grocery shopping in the U.S. are some topics we included in this pilot program. One of our participants recently noted that her class with TWB has been her “favorite” since taking part in ACC programming. Additionally, we have had the opportunity to introduce participants to our dry bread mix products as a potential future market opportunity for income generation.

Our class has included women from Burma, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Our pilot will end this month, but TWB & ACC will be continuing discussions about an on-going partnership with a larger, broader, and bolder vision of empowering women from an array of cultural backgrounds. If you are interested in learning more about our work in Denver, follow our social media networks. You can contribute to our work by visiting our donation page at www.womensbakery.com/donate.

[1]https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/643/documents/CommunitySupport/ImmRef_Assessment.pdf

Piloting TWB in the United States

In January, The Women’s Bakery will celebrate our 2nd birthday in East Africa. As we say in Kinyarwanda, Isabukuru Nziza.

In this time, we have been kneading, shaping, and sharing bread with women, men, and communities, both urban and rural alike. From noisy, cramped shops in Kigali to the rolling, lush green hills of the Western Province, our team has traversed the country to leverage the simplicity and affinity of bread (“imigati” in Kinyarwanda) for autonomy and opportunity through small business creation. Bread is brilliant; it requires few ingredients and it is a product forever in demand. Plus, who doesn’t love bread?

Around the world, eating and sharing bread is a communal process, often symbolizing peace. In Rwanda, for example, it’s not uncommon to cook a traditional Rwandan dish, ubugari, or cassava bread, and have three, four, five, or six people pulling pieces from the bread at once. There is truly something soulful about eating meals like this – together.

TWB has come a long way, too. We started baking bread in Rwanda in 2012, in small villages out in the Eastern part of the country. Then, it was just an idea.

Today, it’s a reality.

And here’s the really crazy part: our bakeries are relevant not just in Rwanda. TWB bakeries can (and will) be relevant around the world. Our model – investing in education, women, and business incubation – works because skill development (with a viable product) can act as a catalyst for income generation, empowerment, and education anywhere.  

Since the beginning of our journey, it has been the goal of both Markey and Julie, our co-founders, to adapt this model as a relevant option for women outside of Rwanda. Our focus remains – and will continue to be – on Rwanda and East Africa, but we have been mindful of potential entry points elsewhere to provide opportunity – for everyone.

In November, after months of planning and discussion, we launched a pilot program, We Baked This, with African Community Center in Denver. With the goal of future partnership for testing a US-adapted training program, TWB was hired to conduct a 10-week training program for a small group of refugee women from countries including Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This group has already learned how to make healthy food choices in American grocery stores, how to read a bread recipe, and how to bake our delicious sweet potato bread.

We will conclude this pilot program in January with the hopes of continuing a partnership with ACC. This way, our model will be available and pertinent to women’s groups in the United States. We are exploring product variation, like bread mixes, to see if there is a viable market for micro-enterprise and vocational education.

Projects like this give me hope, enthusiasm, and zest for The Women’s Bakery. They give me hope because working on behalf of women – whether in Rwanda or the United States – has been a dream of mine since I was young. And, more than just advocating for women’s opportunity, The Women’s Bakery delivers.

It’s not just us, either. It’s the women we work with, the Rwandans that help mobilize and deliver our model, and the supporters we have all over the world. Making bread relevant for all requires the investment of all, too. We’re all needed. And we’re glad you are with us.

May this holiday season (and 2017!) remind you of the possibility and potency that bread and empowerment have anywhere. May you reflect and know that you can be a part of this, believing that a simple slice of bread has the power to change the world. 

Interning with Team TWB

Written by Jordan Smith, TWB's Research Impact Analyst, University of Denver

I participated in the Posner Center for International Development’s annual challenge, Posner Poverty Hack, in July of 2016 where I had the privilege to work on behalf of The Women’s Bakery in an effort to earn a grant to implement a mobile app for sales in their East African bakeries.

The fusion of non-profit operations with for-profit bakeries was exactly the development model I was hoping to gain more insight into, and so I soon after joined their team for a 4-month internship. 

Since late August, I have been working on both social and financial impact analysis.

With the start of their first bakery in Rwanda, I have been tracking sales and production numbers to see the positive direction the Remera, Kigali bakery is growing in. I have compiled reports demonstrating TWB’s social impact with their program participants. In addition, I designed a template for a bakery operations manual using my previous work experience that serves to streamline future expansion.

Working with this team, I have learned that even incremental, positive change is a step in the right direction. Working with women to develop a social-enterprise that provides sustainable employment opportunities for women has the tremendous potential for impact in developing countries, especially in East Africa.

While my internship with TWB is coming to a close, it has provided me with the ongoing challenge of seeing development from a different angle. I am anxious to witness TWB’s success with their current and future programs. I graduate in June 2017 from the University of Denver and, while the future may still be uncertain, I am incredibly grateful to the team at TWB for everything they have taught me. I look forward to seeing them grow in both East Africa and Denver and St. Louis – and beyond!

Technology & The Future of Bakery Sales for TWB

The Women’s Bakery satellite office in Denver is based in The Posner Center for International Development, a co-working space that houses over 60 international organizations. From Guatemala to Rwanda, from China to Syria, the building hosts a multitude of organizations and enterprises seeking poverty alleviation around the world, with a particular focus on cross-collaboration. Each year, the Posner Center hosts a “Poverty Hack” to bring together experts across sectors, leaders in international development, and Posner Center members to work together on various challenges faced by international organizations.

Recently, TWB was a finalist and the selected winner for the 2016 “Posner Poverty Hack.”

With a desire to increase automation in sales for business optimization for our Rwanda-based bakeries, TWB presented a challenge to develop text-based mobile tool. Over the course of three days (from July 10-12, 2016), over 15 individuals worked to brainstorm, develop, and innovatively build a contextualized and innovative solution.

When final pitches took place on the last day of the competition, the panel of judges, including Eleanor Allen (Water for People), Dr. Ann Hudock (Plan International), and Asad Aziz (Colorado State University), chose TWB as the organization with the solution that held the most potential for impact, collaboration, context, and scale.

As the winner, TWB receives funding from sponsor and funder Cognizant Quick Left for implementation. TWB will be working to roll-out a plan with input from TWB women, local developers, and hackathon participants. Our team expects to integrate a mobile sales tool early next year.

A special thanks to The Posner Center for International Development and all Hackathon participants for The Women’s Bakery: Yona Brodeur, Patrick Smith, JoJo Aggers, Jordan Smith, Monica Wright, Micah Gurard-Levin, Sam Lindstrom, Regina Peyfuss, Stephen Richardson, Maxwell “Wolf” Reichard, Amy Greene, Natalie Schreffler and Katie Hile. 

Defying Cultural Boundaries

A wood-carven map of Rwanda sits against the curved white shelf in my office. Wistfully, and perhaps more in wonder, I find myself staring at the map sometimes – in between the lists of “to do’s” of grant applications, communications, and advocacy efforts for The Women’s Bakery.

The map is full of intricate etches; boundaries within the country of Rwanda are lined and marked – Kamonyi, Karongi, Gicumbi, along with the 27 other districts. I purchased this piece of art in the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, and I think I paid around $5. With the amount of required skill to create something so beautiful, I know it is worth so much more.

The boundaries may indicate a political designation, but as the work of TWB engages us further with different aspects of culture, I realize more and more that boundaries are quite fluid – particularly in the realm of international development and women.

In Rwanda, we work with women from all different parts of the country. They might speak the same language, but their experiences in motherhood, in families, in work, and in education all vary. A “one narrative” story doesn’t exist with our women’s groups, nor would we expect it to.

In Denver, I recently attended a Rwandan-Burundian wedding with over 300 guests. The guests, however, were all from countries in East Africa. The complexities of boundaries were instantaneously apparent: Rwandans raised in Tanzania; Burundians raised in Congo; Congolese raised in Rwanda.

Between cold fanta and traditional dancing, I met a young, fiery woman who is soon to receive her degree in international business. A Burundian, she is preparing to launch a social enterprise in her home country to provide business opportunity for women. She listened intently as I told her about TWB’s work in East Africa – about our small, mighty team of both Rwandans and Americans committed to developing a business model fueled by Rwandan women – and she yelped with joy. “It is absolutely amazing,” she said, “to meet individuals committed to moving past cultural lines to help others. Americans care, Burundians care….we can all care about work that matters.”

I smiled exuberantly. I thought of my map of Rwanda. I thought of how incredible it is that in working across cultures, we can all participate in mobilizing solutions – whether it’s TWB women, our supporters, or our teachers. We can all do something. For this, there is no boundary. 

bread is for everyone.

The most beautiful thing about bread (the delicious taste withstanding) is that it belongs to no one. Instead, it belongs to everyone.

Bread (English), brot (German), bröd (Swedish), pan (Spanish), mkate (Swahili), or imigati (Kinyarwanda), is a staple food in nearly every culture, region, and country in the world.

Last week, while in a training session at African Community Center, a woman from Burma described the way that she would make bread at home,

“…we make ours flat, mostly with wheat flour, and with more sugar.”

Other women in the room nodded; some commented on the way they would consume the product. As for me, I spoke about some of the ingredients we use in our bread recipes – the ones that we teach in Rwanda and in Tanzania. The women at ACC wrote vigorously in their notebooks as I explained the importance of yeast and the importance of kneading. Bread isn’t altogether difficult; but it is both a science and an art, and so the process is certainly important.

After introducing the work of The Women’s Bakery to this group of 8 women, they shared their own names and places of origin. Women from Burma, Somalia, Congo, and yes – even Rwanda – gathered for “tea time”, where women at ACC are able to learn something new, or discuss things they are encountering with new life in the United States.

ACC is an organization that helps refugees rebuild lives in Denver. According to the American Immigration Council, 1 in 10 Coloradans is an immigrant, meaning approximately 500,634 individual lives have a history somewhere else. That’s powerful.

At the request of ACC, our Denver team taught one of our personal growth and development lessons, Thinking and Learning Styles. The lesson is typically taught within our programs in Rwanda, but the idea that it can be applicable and relevant stateside is an encouraging notion for our team. Our model is relevant to women – globally – and that is an exciting consideration for our growth as an organization in the future. Indeed, bread (and education and empowerment) is for everyone.

Confidence Rising

by: Markey Culver

Over the last month, I’ve been given opportunities to reflect on The Women’s Bakery – on our work, progress and potential for serious growth. I like to reflect. I like thinking deeply and intentionally about things, which, for me, takes time. However, and because time has become for me a fleeting temptress, I’ve had moments of insta-reflection – snaps of intense perspective that dawn renewed comprehension.

One example is our classroom in Rwanda. I was in Rwanda for 12 days this January and was most excited about three things: meeting our new training cohort of women, meeting our new Rwandan hire, Aimé, and seeing my East Africa team in action. And I got all three at once. I was standing, as an observing visitor, in our classroom watching Aimé adeptly teach our group of 14 women. And that’s when it hit me - I was standing, as an observing visitor, in our classroom watching Aimé adeptly teach our group of 14 women! WHAT? With sharp awareness, I realized that this – this – was the dream. Vocational business training for Rwandans by Rwandans. This was it. The vision. The goal. And now, incredibly, the reality. This was success because the model – once just an idea – was working.  

Then there was the delicious bread the women baked – almost effortlessly and without staff oversight. Then there were the lessons on nutrition, inventory management, production costs, and product pricing. Then there was momentum on their bakery construction. And then, and then, and then.

TWB is no longer “coming together,” it is hurtling forward, propelling itself into greater viability and relevance. Our rapid successful growth is thanks to the TWB team and community – everyone who has stood alongside, supported and helped TWB grow. Which brings me to my second insta-reflection.

On January 23rd, TWB’s Denver team celebrated a successful fundraising event, 303 Rising.  The event was well organized, beautifully executed and fun. I watched my team work. I listened to them speak with impassioned conviction. Another flash of acute recognition. This is it, I realized, TWB is so much bigger than I am now; it coveys such importance to many along multiple facets. People believe in TWB. And they are dedicating their lives to it. WHAT?

Witnessing this event – which I had no hand in orchestrating – compounded with watching my East African team crush their work in Rwanda has evoked a deepened commitment within me. I believe in TWB with everything I have, but few things are more motivating than watching others substantiate, refine, fortify and drive your vision.

My team’s crazy hard work to push TWB into what it can be is inspiring and validating. TWB is working. And this is just the beginning.