A Great Place to Work
This is the place where they feel comfortable, happy and proud to work in such amazing place, and this leads to their desire to keep working hard, to learn, and to pursue more opportunities for sales, product development, and more!
We might think earning a salary or a wage is everything we need to move within our daily lives at work, but it is not the only thing that motivates us to reach our professional goals at The Women’s Bakery (TWB). In fact, our progress and movement depends on many things.
For example, other motivating factors in the workplace include the environment of our work, our team members, our supervisors, the products, etc. At TWB, we have had the motivation to move forward with all that is happening at our flagship bakery especially because we have a supportive, meaningful, delightful, and beautiful workplace.
Launching the flagship bakery was a major achievement for the team and even more so for the women we work with. This is the place where they feel comfortable, happy and proud to work in such amazing place, and this leads to their desire to keep working hard, to learn, and to pursue more opportunities for sales, product development, and more!
Oooooh! I can tell more about our café space which is an enjoyable spot to be; our customers really feel comfortable eating TWB’s tasty sweet potato rolls, honey twists, and muffins. They love these products so much that sometimes they fall asleep on swings after doing their work.
Imagine…
Just come by!!!
Imagine
I couldn’t even begin to imagine that this would be what our flagship was like. We have our offices next to our industrial ovens. We have the production space lined with clean, high-quality tiles. We are running a business and we are kicking ass.
The first thing I saw was turquoise – bright, vivid, imaginative. I walked a little further, stuck between wanting to gallivant forward and taking my time as I approached the bakery – our bakery.
Fully inside, I could see everything that I had been seeing via photographs for the last year; I saw the decorative plants, the plush bean bags, and swings – yes, swings – that fused together to create a space of relaxation and peace.
Most importantly, I saw one of our bakers, Liziki, exit from the back part of the bakery, leaping to give us greetings and hugs.
We had arrived at KG 176 #13 – The Women’s Bakery Flagship Bakery in Kigali.
I remember when this was an idea tossed around a few years ago; what if we had a training center and a bakery in one place? What if we could have one location that would be a model for future locations?
Now, the idea is a reality and I am sitting in a bakery café – a Women’s Bakery café – that is operated by over 10 women that have been with us for several years. Again, as it always is with this work, I am in awe of what all of us, especially women, are capable of.
I am proud to be a team member of an organization that pushes forth the kind of work that blends both business and social impact for women.
I am inspired to see the growth of an idea into a reality – one that not only enables women to have gainful, sustainable employment, but also brings unique products to market (I mean, who doesn’t love avocado frosting?)
And mostly, I am humbled by what is possible.
In the last 3 years with The Women’s Bakery I have learned the power of asking questions and of imagining something beyond what I can conceive.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine that this would be what our flagship was like. We have our offices next to our industrial ovens. We have the production space lined with clean, high-quality tiles. We are running a business and we are kicking ass.
That is really what bread power is all about and I am beyond grateful to witness it and experience it in person.
To all of my team members at TWB: keep rising, keep going. This is truly only the beginning.
Opening & Launching the TWB Café Shop and Flagship Bakery
We have come from so far, and each small step has set us forward.
Next Monday is a critical day for The Women’s Bakery: we are officially opening up our flagship location with a soft launch. We can hardly believe that it is finally here!
When we started the bakery at Remera, our endeavors were challenging. However, after moving to our flagship bakery, I can see (and know) that our future is bright.
Together, for the last several months, we have been working together to achieve our mission of launching our Kigali Flagship. It would not have been possible with the passion, energy, and inspiration of our staff at TWB.
With the launch of the café shop and new bakery, our goal is to expand production and volume for our bread products. Ultimately, this will support our biggest goal: bakery profitability.
Since I joined the team in 2016, I have seen many positive changes in the organization. The move to the flagship feels like the biggest accomplishment so far, and because of that, I am positive, but also confident.
We have taken many small steps that have led to this big step. This is bread power.
From Scratch: Our Flagship Story
Building something from scratch takes work. It takes grit. It takes passion and endurance. But those are things that the staff at The Women’s Bakery embodies well.
Building something from scratch—now there’s a concept we know well at The Women’s Bakery. From our founders who built our Bakery in A Box model from the ground up, to the women in each of our bakery locations around East Africa that bake highly nutritious bread from locally sourced ingredients: we build things from scratch daily. It’s part of our culture: we push, strive, overcome and accomplish in order to further our mission of empowering women through business and education.
We are strong women baking bread... and building financial models, breaking into new markets, recipe testing, operating, organizing, and training. The list is endless.
Our most recent building project, quite literally, has been our effort to create a new Flagship Bakery: a space to propel our brand, display the ultimate success of our model, and sell nutritious bread. The Women’s Bakery Flagship is an inviting environment for Kigali, Rwanda customers to enjoy, interact and collaborate in while learning about and supporting our social enterprise model. It’s a space with higher production capacity to meet growing market demands, a hub for TWB product and marketing innovation, a centralized training center for future TWB programs, a single office location for cohesion as a bakery and organization.
It’s a model for TWB bakeries everywhere.
Building something from scratch takes work. It takes grit. It takes passion and endurance. But those are things that the staff at The Women’s Bakery embodies well. It has been an inspiration to see everyone put their hands to the challenging task of doing something we’ve never done before. But we’re doing it. We’re building it up from scratch: design, processes, systems, products. And it’s going to be AWESOME. It’s going to showcase #breadpower and we cannot wait to share it with you.
Coming soon, The Women’s Bakery Flagship.
