The Last Few Months at the Flagship

From the hard launch of the Flagship in May, to its ongoing operations now 6 months later, much growth has been achieved. We have seen an increase in the number of pieces of bread being baked every day and we are offering new products: smoothies, salads, brown breads, and baguettes.

Walking into the Flagship, you feel welcome. You feel hope. You feel the essence of bread power. The quick growth of this bakery, is showing our other bakeries that growth is possible and that we can achieve the goals we have for ourselves as women, for each bakery, and for our communities.

People in Kigali are loving the flagship bakery. And I think you too would love it. I invite you to come join us for a piece of bread and a cup of coffee.

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?  

A Great Place to Work

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!!!

Women in Change

What an amazing opportunity to see our country rise and make changes in every angle of its sectors, whether government, private, or public.

My Rwanda is one of the countries that supports women and gives women more chances and opportunities to grow. Rwanda continues to encourage women to create more ideas and to seek support for these ideas.

Because Rwanda and its government cannot not reach every woman in the country, the private sectors are welcomed to join them and work hand in hand. Without collaboration in this capacity, Rwanda would not be where it is today.

Our one and only THE WOMEN’S BAKERY has established itself in Rwanda and has engaged in the sector of women’s empowerment. Our business is doing great things as it is impacting women’s life and the entire community. Fighting against malnutrition and creating sources of income for these women has been one of the most important women’s empowerment activities and it is working.

In addition to baking skillsets, The Women’s Bakery teaches women their rights, how to advocate for them, where to go for help, and ultimately, how to claim their rights. TWB also creates confidence in these women (especially as rights are shared and exercised), which can reduce violence within the families and even in the community.

We thank the private sector and our Government of Rwanda for understanding the value of a woman and to promote equal opportunity with men. We work and get paid so we have source of income. We take good care of our family because we know the value of our family and we have capacity to look after them. To all in Rwanda that has welcomed our business, thank you from THE WOMEN’S BAKERY IN RWANDA.

#breadpower

No electricity? No problem, we can still bake!

Outside of Kigali, TWB works in rural remote communities in Rwanda, where access to electricity is scarce, and using any electronic equipment is almost impossible.

Does that hinder TWB from providing affordable, nutritious bread to its communities? Nope! 

TWB, in partnership with local welders, has engineered, a cool yet simple to operate wood oven model that is replicated across all remote TWB Bakeries. Wood ovens are the alternative to electric ovens, which are used more seamlessly in more urban locations, like Kigali. 

The wood oven is used for TWB women to bake the bread - the ovens are simple in design and economically sound for less fire wood consumption than a residential door chimney. 

All breads are effectively baked, and efficiently sold at affordable price to the local communities around our bakeries, and if this doesn’t prove the power of enabled communities and asset based community development, I don’t know what else would.

TWB has been able to show the world that remote communities cannot be left out of development and economic opportunity just because they don’t have access the basic infrastructure.

The Women’s Bakery believes it! What about you?

Imagine

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.

The Road Less Traveled

Written by TWB's Development Intern, Nichole Crust. 

I love women, baking, and entrepreneurship so when I was looking for an internship and found out about The Women’s Bakery (TWB) the organization seemed like a natural fit. I dug a bit deeper into their founders and model and was honestly skeptical. I wondered what a few white girls without business and baking experience could possibly have to teach Rwanda about health and economic development let alone baking?

The answer surprised me.

I’m so excited to be interning for The Women’s Bakery this summer. My internship started with a two-week trip to Rwanda. I landed in Kigali early on Monday and hit the ground running. Noel, the Country Director graciously picked me up from airport and whisked me away to TWB’s headquarters to meet the Rwanda team and learn more about TWB’s work by attending the team’s weekly meeting.

From my first interactions with the team, their drive and determination to intentionally and holistically impact the lives of women and their families was obvious. My first encounter was a conversation about fire wood and oven temperatures. The group was passionately discussing the best solutions to address problems with oven temperatures, costs of fire wood, lack of fire wood, and alternative fuel sources for their ovens. It seemed like a trivial issue, but it was complex and complicated.

TWB’s administration (which is the most positive and proactive administration I have encountered) approached the task of finding a solution with a holistic approach that not only considered the bottom line for TWB’s budget, but also considered the overall health and well-being of the bakery staff. It was beautiful to witness this team so naturally and intentionally solve this problem in a way the considered the greater good.

I saw this style of administration and problem solving played out again and again as a I visited each of the TWB’s bakeries. At TWB’s Kagina bakery I was struck by the forthcoming way an internal conflict was approached. A new employee who was also new to the city and a new job as a baker in a new organization was navigating the social relationships with other women bakers.

Instead of the issue being ignored, it was acknowledged and a conversation that lead led to a real understanding of each other was facilitated. Understanding the important role of food in problem solving, the women were treated to “tea” to continue to resolve the issue.

The work of TWB is not easy and its approach is on the road less traveled. However, TWB’s methods are effective and working to create systemic sustainable impact in the lives of its employees and their families.

Small Incremental Change – The Path to Sustainable Change

Most non-profits want to show their impact with numbers. Big numbers. And, in a short period of time.

Stakeholders want people trained in the 1,000s or 10s of thousands. Stakeholders want number of lives touched in the millions. However, all too often, those numbers do not account for the depth of impact and confuse a small touch with programming to mean big change for that individual, their families, or their communities.

At TWB we have questioned the traditional numbers and goals for these numbers that non-profits use.

Some of the questions we asked ourselves were:

1. Will the women who go through TWB training ACTUALLY be able to get a job with the skills they learned?
2. Will that job allow them to work EVERY DAY, indefinitely, and slowing increase their salary?
3. Will they ACTUALLY be making more money than when they started training?
4. Will they ACTUALLY have access to healthcare?

This is what we have been trying to prove over two years later. And, the answers are yes.

1. 100% of women who go through our training program are offered jobs after training in TWB owned or managed bakeries.
2. Employment in TWB owned or managed bakeries is every day, six days a week, all months of the year (excluding public holidays).
3. On average, women working in TWB owned or managed bakeries make 2x their pre-bakery salaries from their first day of employment. 
4. 100% of women at TWB owned or managed bakeries have access to health insurance and monthly mental health counseling as benefits to their employment.

However, this is not without a tremendous amount of both financial and human capital invested. It is through the hard work of an entire team of 12 Rwanda-based employees and interns that execute and operate our programs.

We have realized the power of our impact on just one woman.

We believe that small, incremental change is a strong indicator of sustainable change. Our team is proud of all the hard work we have contributed to making a difference in the lives of the women we work with.

Flashback to Memory Lane

Switching from wooden ovens to electric ovens at our Kigali Bakery was a game changer, but as a Rwandan proverb says, “If you don’t remember where you came from, you will never know where you are going.”

Keeping our old wooden ovens was just an idea to use them for back-up when there is a black out or power shortage. Recently, we did lose power, and seeing the TWB women back to the old oven also called “The Agakecuru” ("the old lady") as the women call it, reminded us of the old memories TWB went through when we were only using the wooden oven.

This incident prompted me to reflect and also gave me a lot to appreciate for where we are now. This is also a marker, and for other bakeries that are starting from the beginning, they can see that growth is certainly possible. 

Remembering how far we have come is a paramount value to hold onto as our journey toward success continues. Now, we're building our brand even more and even launching a coffee shop!

Best yet, we're just getting started. 

Together we rise! Bread Power.

Opening & Launching the TWB Café Shop and Flagship Bakery

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.  

Zoomed in on Gicumbi

For the last 3 years, TWB has made tremendous strides toward achieving our milestones. Bakeries have launched throughout the country of Rwanda and the TWB staff has almost tripled. These are signs of success.

In 2018, TWB is focusing on Gicumbi as our next training and bakery launch site. Our preparations are on a good track, including developing the training schedule, partner relationships, and interview process for the participants. We will be launching the training for this group on April 23rd.

Gicumbi is in the northern part of Rwanda. Within this community, TWB will be working with Rwandans, as well as a diverse group of refugees living in the Gihembe Refugee Camp. The location offers a good business opportunity because of the local demans for food products. Additionally, those living within the refugee camp do not have farms to cultivate, so they only rely on the crops that are produced by the local Rwandans.

In terms of bread demand, our market testing has been positive. TWB has found a need for the breads in this district because most of the breads are brought from Kigali.

TWB breads use locally sourced ingredients and are highly nutritious, delicious and affordable. Among children under the age of 5 years, stunting levels were 36.6% in Gicumbi district according to the Demographic Health Survey in 2015. Thus, our breads can be a mechanism to fight against malnutrition and improve families’ nutrition as well as nutrition for the entire community.

Moreover, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, in coordination with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), recently changed their subsidy program for refugees in Rwanda. They are piloting a cash-subsidy system – meaning that each refugee, rather than being given her allotted rice or corn subsidy, is given the cash equivalent. The hope is that the cash system will spawn micro-economies.

Stay tuned and will be updated for more progress on this new opportunity arising…

This is #breadpower. 

Julie and Aime on a recent site visit to TWB’s upcoming bakery site in Gicumbi, Rwanda. 

Our Days Are Filled with Problems to Be Fixed

Rwanda is a country of opportunity. According to The World Bank, Rwanda is the second easiest country in Africa to run a business.[1] Registering your business at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) can take a matter of minutes.

However, being a foreigner starting a business in Rwanda can be a challenge. Being a foreigner with no business background can be an even bigger challenge.

When Co-Founder and Co-Director, Julie Greene, and I registered The Women’s Bakery as a business in Rwanda in August 2015, we had no idea what a wild ride was in store for us.

Since then, we have had to learn the ins and outs of many regulatory bodies including the Rwanda Development Board, Rwanda Revenue Authority, Rwanda Social Security Board, Rwanda Standards Board, Immigration, and the list goes on.

The simple, most important lesson I have learned in Rwanda is that our days are filled with barriers, but almost every barrier also has a solution. Every day, multiple times a day, we need to craft solutions to meet the challenges, regulations, and broken systems that we face.

Let me give you an example.

When we first started filing taxes for our full-time employees we couldn’t physically upload the excel template to the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) online portal (which was required to process taxes). I waited 45 minutes for an RRA staff member to help me every day for a week straight. After countless hours talking to a variety of staff members, one was finally able to help me find the root of the problem. This was that the excel file was only formatted for PC computers and not for Macs. As a result, one of the columns in the excel was using the incorrect date format causing the whole document to throw an error when trying to upload it.

We have learned so many lessons in the past two and a half years and we look forward to collaboratively using our problem-solving skills to tackle the million more challenges headed in our direction in the years to come.

[1] http://ventureburn.com/2017/11/easiest-places-in-africa-to-start-a-business/

From Scratch: Our Flagship Story

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.

What does progress look like?

I was able to spend January in Rwanda this year. I get to visit Rwanda about 3 or 4 times a year and while working outside of Rwanda has its drawbacks, the benefits are seeing the leaps of progress each time I visit.

The bakeries are the most obvious indication of progress. The women have mastered their workflows, are baking with confident know-how, and producing breads that look and taste delicious. Many women have become target customers for accessories, like bras and purses, because they are now seen as having money. And many women report powerful changes in their lives – they know how to prepare a more nutritious meal for their children; they feel confident in their abilities; they feel respected in their communities; they feel successful/lucky/grateful/empowered by their incomes.

It’s the shiny side of our work.

But what does the dull side of our work look like? Or, perhaps a better question, what is the ugly side of our work? What is not working?

Well, we thought our bakeries would be profitable by now; we thought the women wanted to own the bakeries (they don’t); we thought we’d get picked up by Oprah or Ellen; we thought our bread products would speak for themselves (many Rwandese value quantity over quality…); we thought building businesses in Rwanda would be much less expensive than it is (hellooooo taxes!).  But here’s what I find so inspiring about The Women’s Bakery, our model, and especially our team: our ability to transform.

Transformation is different than adaptation.

To me, adaptation means you accept your surroundings and modify yourself to work within them. We have certainly done (and have had to do) this, but I don’t think that paints the full picture, nor does it give credit to our innovation. Accepting our surroundings would mean that we simply make doughnuts or nutritionally-weak white bread because that’s what sells. It would mean that we work with men because women stay in the field and the home since “that’s what women do.”  It would mean that we, as a hybrid nonprofit/for-profit company, would consider our people – the reason we have successful programs – overhead and keep them at 10% of our overall budget.

But what if there were more? What if we didn't accept that realities?

What if people did buy bread because it is nutritious or good quality? What if women wanted to work somewhere else? What if a company valued its people as much as it valued its customers/partners/beneficiaries?

We believe all of those “what if’s” are possible. And we’re doing it. WHAT? It’s exhilarating.

I recently remarked to TWB’s Co-Founder and Co-Director, Julie, that her greatest quality is resiliency. Then my eyes popped out of my head because I realized that this trait – perhaps infused by Julie – epitomizes our Women’s Bakery company culture. We believe in our mission. We listen. We learn from our mistakes. We remain committed to what we know can work. And we act with a shrewdness that would make Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, proud. 

A Proud Walk

As the women from TWB's Remera Bakery walked up the hill from our old location, I could not help but to notice the sense of pride among them. Walking together, I heard small whispering voices “we did it, way to go.”

We all experience change in our lives and every time something positive happens in our lives we feel optimistic and hopeful. Small changes could be a pair of new shoes, a nice meal, a new make up set, or even a new batch of bread! However, when it comes to a start-up business, ALL positive change makes a difference - no matter how small it seems.

The Women's Bakery has been experiencing a number of positive changes, and this feels the biggest right now. Shifting the former bakery space to our new, beautiful flagship location has been a much anticipated solution, not only to the management of TWB, but also to the women that work at the TWB Bakery in Remera.

TWB has secured a new bakery space to expand production and capacity for our new flagship, The Women's Bakery Kigali. This is a big step for growth and one of great excitement as we consider the new possibilities for operational growth as the way to bakery profitability.

The walk from the former bakery space (up the hill) to the new flagship space took about 30 minutes. The metaphor of walking up was not lost on us, as it signaled where we have come from - and where we are going. 

The women arrived to the gate of the new flagship, curious to see what was inside, and where they would continue to bake, sell, and provide nutritious, affordable breads for the community. Once the gate was opened, they had the opportunity to look around, to check out the new space, and to envision the new future of The Women's Bakery. 

“ Then… now we are just getting started,” one of the women said as she reflected on how far TWB has come. Indeed, we are just getting started. 

This is #breadpower. 

TWB Rwanda's 2nd Annual Team Retreat

written by TWB Operations Intern, Martha Mukakalisa

On the 24th of January, The Women’s Bakery team in Rwanda held our annual retreat in Gisenyi (Rubavu District).

All together, we were a team of 12, all as staff and interns working with The Women’s Bakery. We had the added benefit of also having the founder of TWB (Markey Culver) and co-founder (Julie Greene), too.

The main purpose of the retreat was to review how 2017 went what we want 2018 to look like. This was achieved through presentations on organizational culture, alignment, project reports, and updates on marketing plans, curriculum updates, and model adaptations.  

During the retreat conversations and sessions, we were sure to always come back to the overall mission and vision of our organization: TWB exists to create access to education to ensure sustainable gainful, employment for women, and for improved health for the women (as well as the communities in which we work).

We also had time to build relationships on the through playing some engaging games, providing feedback to one another, and of course, sharing food together. Aime, our Training Manager, led many of these team-building sessions, and with 12 people, it was a great way to enhance camaraderie on our team.

At the end of the retreat we revisited the mission and the vision of TWB as well as the goals of 2018.

The goals of 2018 are big: to bring the existing bakeries to breakeven and profitability, to test the proposed model for success at Gicumbi (the new bakery), and to ensure that the bakeries consistently produce and sell high quality and nutritious products.

Working for Future Generations in Rwanda

“If you catch time sleeping, don’t hesitate to steal it” Rwandan Proverb

How one leads has a lot to do with how one communicates. In a hierarchical organization, the communication system is organized mostly vertically.

So is leadership, and this what makes a difference at TWB. 

We give access to nutritious and healthy snacks and create opportunity for baking and vocational education - especially for women and girls. This is important because even now, only 14% of girls complete secondary school in Rwanda. By developing alternative opportunties for education, we are instilling a new way to access autonomy and choice. 

Marginalized communities around the world must not become charity consumers of solutions imagined and created elsewhere, but be creators of knowledge and opportunities that they and others, own the process of, and use to address their community challenges.

We all will be richer if we partake in the diversity of human experience and wisdom across the globe, if we meet the challenge of reaching out and including all, if we will have a world where human beings will enjoy dignity, prosperity, equity, and justice.

TWB women are thoroughly empowered to ensure that we are on the right track to accomplish this mission. We have strong, educated, entrepreneurial women. We are not looking back, because that’s is not where we are going, nor are our women. We owe it to the next generations.

At some extent, one can ask, how far does TWB go in impacting lives? Just to the women they support?

Well, our work is beyond just the women, because they have families, and children that depend on their earnings from TWB for school fees, medical insurance, food, and beyond. The communities we work within are also impacted, as we are sparking micro-economies that rely on locally-sourced materials for locally-produced goods. 

In Rwanda, we also say, "in every seed, there is hope to grow a forest." I am grateful to be working with TWB and to grow this vision and work - together. 

Bread Power! Awouwou!

A Real Sign of Success

I returned to Rwanda a week ago. I’m here for several reasons: first, to support our amazing and ever-kick-ass COO, Julie Greene, in all of her work; second, to on-board two new TWB team members (stay tuned!); and third, to welcome two representatives from our corporate sponsor, Rademaker, BV, to Rwanda. I’m only in Rwanda for one month, so it will be a whirlwind of a trip.

I usually feel a combination of anxiety and excitement coming to Rwanda.

The anxiety stems from questions like: 

“Will I be able to accomplish my pre-identified tasks?”

“How much “help” can I provide, or am I really more in an oversight role?”

“How much can I actually do in a month?”

The excitement, however, thankfully and graciously, centers me to think: “Wow! Just look at how much progress we have made.” “Are you kidding me?! These women are now doing what?!” And, “Seriously, TWB team, you created this? It’s AMAZING.”

I had one of those “WOW” moments this week. I went to our bakery in Kigali to test the proper functioning of one of our ovens. I arrived and told the women, “Right, I’m going to bake some bread and test this oven. Would you like to help me?” They agreed. I began to prepare. I washed my hands and got my materials ready. Then, I realized, “Wait, where is the recipe?” I asked the women and they laughed. “We have the recipes in our heads,” they said. Impressed, but not discouraged, I said, “Wonderful! I don’t, so please pass me the recipe book.”

I started baking and one woman, Rose, laughed at me again. She said under her breath in Kinyarwanda, “You don’t know how to bake.” I stopped, stunned. Whaaaaaaat? I thought. I don’t know how to bake?! I taught you! But then the most beautiful thing happened: Rose gently pushed me out of the way and took over, still half laughing, half commenting under her breath that I didn’t know how to bake.

I stood back and realized that this was the best thing that could happen – the women were now better at baking than I was. The women were teaching me how to make bread!

If this isn’t a sign of success, I don’t know what is. And it is a testament to both the women and our incredible TWB team.

BOOM. 

From Rwanda to Denver and Back: Ideas Across Continents

Over the last two and a half years, I have been based in East Africa, primarily leading TWB programs in Rwanda. During that time, we have grown from one training group to five graduated groups, culminating in the establishment of two Tanzanian and four Rwandan bakeries.

A goal, and outcome, we have always held is that bakery groups can learn from one another. We envision and strive for a collaborative network, where ideas and successes are shared, strategies for overcoming obstacles dispersed, and mutual growth is spurred between bakeries. We encourage trainees and graduates to visit other sites, and frequently, we bring bakery employees from operating bakeries to lead specialized sessions during the training of new groups. This collaboration across the bakery network can encourage, bolster confidence among the women, and inspire innovation.

On my most recent trip home, I spent time in our Denver office where, among (many) other things, we are developing a model for US programs. The initial ideas are drawn from our current model in Rwanda, adapting elements to meet the needs of a different consumer market and trainee population. As these plans come to life for our pilot model in the States, I find that not only can we draw from the existing model, successes, and challenges in Rwanda, but we can also apply new expansion ideas for the US to strategies in Rwanda.

As our team designs a new program for an entirely new space, I have been able to step back from the day to day of Rwanda operations and look at our current programs with a new lens. Innovating the Rwanda model for US expansion also gives us the opportunity to innovate the US model for East African expansion. Like the individual bakeries and trained women, TWB as an organization benefits from collaboration, building and exchanging ideas across countries and models.

Real Impact on Women

Though TWB explicitly works as an organization to educate women, our empowerment work is just as important. This extends into the realm of the lives of the women we work with – considering their safety, health, and family lives.

In Africa, one out of three women will be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime[1]. This is real statistic from the United Nations, illuminating the fact that women throughout the continent (and also the world) are in need of protection, education, and rights. Through working at a bakery, our hope is that women can build and invest in social networks to prevent future violence. We have installed my position of Bakery Operations Manager (BOM) to serve as much more to the women – a leader, a counselor, and a mentor – with the hope that women have a safe place to discuss challenges they face in society.

In addition to violence (whether physical, sexual, or otherwise) that women encounter, TWB also seeks to address the root causes of perpetual poverty that many of the women we work with face. Women make up the majority people how living in extreme poverty. As part of elevating their individual situations, it’s critical that women not only have a job, but a sustainable job, one where they can receive a livable, meaningful wage. Moreover, poverty includes political, social, and economic forces; at TWB, we hope that through employment and opportunities for health, the women at our bakeries will be able to overcome these barriers and change the landscape of their lives.

This part of our work is not easy. Empowering a woman takes resources, time, and investment. However, we remain committed to this cause, improving the health and well-being of women, one bakery at a time.

[1] http://www.un.org/en/women/endviolence/pdf/VAW.pdf