Women's Participation in Economic Development
We believe in women’s capabilities and we work hard to support them in being active citizens and helping them to become breadwinners in their families.
The Women’s Bakery provides business education, life skills, and applied baking and nutrition skills to women. Through education and vocational training, women learn to source local, nutritious ingredients to produce and sell affordable breads in their communities. This helps them to change their life status from poverty and unemployment to permanent employment and becoming independent women.
Across the world women are considered to be the most important element in a family. They are multitasking; they give birth, take care of children, husband and family. But we can’t forget that they are also making a substantial contribution towards the process of economic transformation and sustainable growth not only in family but also in the community.
The Women’s Bakery has put into consideration women’s participation in the economic development of a family by empowering women and at the same time supporting them to play a vital role in country development through business trainings and starting bakery businesses.
We believe in women’s capabilities and we work hard to support them in being active citizens and helping them to become breadwinners in their families.
#womencan #womenscapabilities #womensempowerment
Together, women and men, we rise.
When women and men are able to work side by side in a bakery, equality begins to take shape. Women – and men- are equally capable in kneading dough, in marketing products, and in tracking inventory. Identifying areas of gender inequity and previous assumptions based on gender, TWB actively is seeking to empower women – which in turn, empowers us all.
There are two questions I am always asked when I share that I work with The Women’s Bakery. Whether I am asked by friends, baristas, cyclists, strangers, or frankly, anyone who has ears to listen, these two questions remain constant.
“Where is your bakery?” and, “do you help only women?”
Quickly, I explain that TWB is a social enterprise with most of our work located in East Africa – including the bakeries that we help launch and oversee. This is usually followed by enthusiastic requests to have a bakery in the heart of Denver or another U.S. city. I smile and nod. “Someday, guys. Someday.”
When it comes to the question of gender, I emphasize that our work cannot, and should not be done in isolation. We are aptly named The Women’s Bakery with women as a focus because of the particular challenges women face globally, but we simultaneously believe that any investment in human development must involve everyone.
This year, we will have two trainings that include male participants. That’s a big deal. Working with men matters because promoting larger-level concepts of autonomy, or choice, or opportunity, has to be supported by the society-at-large.
Traditionally decision-making, authority, and control have often been yielded to men. As women enter the workforce, complete education, and make choices about the direction of their lives, power becomes more equitable. Men – and women- work together for the communities, families, and children they are looking to support. Equitable societies give voice to all – no matter what gender one has.
In the United States, when women were provided the right to vote in 1920, the process of acceptance and advocacy for civic equality was a movement propelled by both genders. Securing this victory didn’t happen overnight; it developed over time, with investment from all genders as a mutually beneficial change for our country.
In baking bread, learning about nutritious food options, and building a locally-relevant bakery, men are needed because men are also part of the community.
When women and men are able to work side by side in a bakery, equality begins to take shape. Women – and men- are equally capable in kneading dough, in marketing products, and in tracking inventory. Identifying areas of gender inequity and previous assumptions based on gender, TWB actively is seeking to empower women – which in turn, empowers us all.
See, Think, Understand, Do.
“Some people see, think, and go…Others see, think, understand, and try to do something.”
“Some people see, think, and go…Others see, think, understand, and try to do something.”
These words were shared with myself and Markey over juice and beers at a local bar last week. We were meeting with a new friend—a soft spoken, thoughtful man who had passed by the Remera Bakery one day and was drawn in by his curiosity. As it turned out, he had previously worked with Peace Corps Volunteers in Rwanda. We immediately bonded over shared connections and visions for strengthening women and communities as he marveled at the unique, nutritious breads the women had made that morning.
We continued our conversation with him later that week at Champion Hotel, and as a mélange of live local and foreign music played in the background, I was struck once again by the way things continue to fall in place with TWB.
Here was yet another local champion—a Rwandan who had grown up in Uganda, sacrificed his own education for 6 years to allow his younger siblings to study, moved his family back to Rwanda, finally pursuing his own secondary and university education despite being years older than his classmates. He has since managed large programs throughout Rwanda, teaching youth, women and families entrepreneurship and savings skills. When he stumbled across The Women’s Bakery last week, he recognized the link between our bakery business program and the entrepreneurship/savings programs he has done before. TWB is a bridge—“They (groups) have a business mind. If you bring a practical skill, it can be a scaling up, an additional benefit to these groups.”
It is people like Amos who make TWB possible in practice. I sometimes struggle internally, wondering if we are doing the right things, moving in the right direction, putting into motion ideas and programs that will truly work and not just be another failed “foreign input.” But when I meet the Amos’ of Rwanda, I am inspired to keep moving forward—not because I am seeing, thinking, understanding and trying to do something, but because Rwandans are, too.
“But knowledge we will not forget”
A few weeks ago, our senior staff members each took some time to answer the following question: What is the ideal state of the world that you are trying to achieve?
Not surprisingly, there were common themes throughout each of our answers. It turns out we really are a united front! Interestingly though, we all approached the same themes through our own unique lenses. One of us focused strongly on business to achieve our goals, one of us on human centered approaches, one of us on gender equity. Consistent in all of our ideals, however, was education.
“I view education as a catalyst for creating access to opportunity.”
“Education begins with unheard voices, shared stories, and grows into success upon the ownership of creative, new ideas.”
“If we are successful, we will be able to provide educational opportunities no matter an individual’s circumstances.”
“Education expands horizons, fosters understanding, and stimulates courage. Education is humanizing, and, because it is humanizing, education becomes an advocate for justice.”
TWB focuses heavily on education because knowledge cannot be taken away; it can be endlessly passed on to others. In the words of one of our Tanzanian trainees, “If we had gotten money, we would have already used it, but knowledge we will not forget!”
