Bridging Cultures

In April, I traveled to Rwanda where I saw the multidimensional benefits of The Women’s Bakery taking shape. While The Women’s Bakery is still refining the recipe for its business model, I saw firsthand that the bakery acts as a springboard for women to develop basic professional and leadership skills. These women can then reinvest these skills to build healthier communities and families. Another important component to the bakery, not discussed quite as often, is its ability to bridge cultures.  I want to talk about how The Women’s Bakery connected me to Rwandan culture, which I hope reflects another level of impact that The Women’s Bakery provides.

In my visit to the first bakery established by The Women’s Bakery, I interacted with Rwandan women, which opened a window into their daily lives and the struggles they face in finding work and supporting their families. Through The Women’s Bakery, I also met Aime Nshizirungu, who in many ways represents a bright future for Rwanda. Aime shared with me his story of Rwanda and exposed me to the notion that The Women’s Bakery is not just about women. From the very beginning, Aime has played an integral role in empowering women through the bakery. Aime knows that investing in women can yield high impacts in regions exacerbated by public health concerns and gender inequality. Therefore, Aime has worked tirelessly to educate these first cohorts of women bakers and stands out as a leader to address social and economic challenges through empowering women. Through Aime, I learned about Rwanda from a perspective that I would never have been exposed to without The Women’s Bakery. Most notably, Aime took me to visit his chicken farm in the village of Ntarama where he employs and provides housing for a previously unemployed and homeless family. Through working on the farm, the family now has the means to send their children to school. Impressively, Aime finds the time to work for The Women’s Bakery, attend graduate school, and manage his farm. Since the vast majority of Rwandans currently live in rural communities, this visit to Ntarama with Aime allowed me to better understand the livelihood of an average citizen in Rwanda.

There are two important messages regarding The Women’s Bakery that I would like to reiterate from my experiences visiting Rwanda. As The Women’s Bakery continues to develop its primary goal of empowering women, it will also provide a means to share cultures and create friendships like it has already for me and many others. Also, that the success of The Women’s Bakery depends on the hard work and support of both women and men. I hope to continue communicating with Aime and next time he visits the United States I hope to share with him where I am from. I am excited to see how Aime and The Women’s Bakery will continue to further empower women, bridge cultures, and integrate men towards achieving their mission. 

- Ben North
Tourist and Younger Brother of TWB Staff Meg North and TWB Consultant Liz North Boucher

The Story Behind the Logo

Slightly lopsided, with uneven cement grounding the stakes, it was still a rather perfect moment.

Perfect, because a man called Serugendo (coming from the Kinyarwanda word “urugendo”, meaning journey) was the one hammering our sign into the ground. He, with TWB guard, Steve, of course. Stick around TWB Headquarters for a while and you too will see – there’s a lot of hands, minds, and support in every nook and cranny.

In a lovely picture of irony, Meg and I stood back to admire the sign in front of us: “The Women’s Bakery.” After years of planning, learning, and dreaming – this idea of bread and empowerment was really happening. It has been a journey.

The weeks following the placement of our sign were full of interesting questions, calls, and chatter. Passersby were excited to understand more fully what we do – and it gave us an opportunity to explain. Our logo in our signature yellow-gold color was in a prominent place for all to see. The logo features a woman with outstretched arms, fingers held up, conveying the image of traditional Rwandan dance. This is a posture that represents the power of a cow with lengthy long-horns, and also alludes to celebration for harvest for the season of crops. When you see a dance like that, with dirt rising from the pounding of feet to earth, it’s an incredibly moving experience. It stirs a strength from within.

Because it is reminiscent of Rwandan dance, we received interesting inquiries about dancing lessons or performances that would be occurring at our office. These made us laugh and create another entry-point for what the symbol means and how it translates to what we do. We don’t teach dance, we would gently tell our friends, we teach women how to maintain a business, how to incorporate nutrition into her life, and how to bake bread. Rooted in empowerment, the woman in our logo channels all of these things.

And so, because we don’t teach dance, we are excited to share the real story behind the logo. The logo was crafted by Darsey Landoe, a graphic designer in Portland and friend of Markey.

Markey introduced me to so many people and experiences in Rwanda, and blew both my worldview and view of myself wide open. One thing that stood out to me was watching people dance at church one Sunday. Women, men, kids, all dancing and singing and banging a giant drum with an uninhibited enthusiasm. Not self-aware like Americans, but big, loud, clear, honest, true. Dancing for no one but themselves. That image is stamped hard in my memory. I want to live my life like they danced their dance that day. 

When Markey asked me to do the logo for TWB, I thought back to that moment in Rwanda. Markey told me the dance the women did with their arms out was meant to literally represent cows, and metaphorically represent harvest. I didn’t want a cute logo with a loaf of bread. I wanted something with meaning. That was it.