Bread, Hands & Flying Money!
At a small-business expo in the Western Province of Rwanda, TWB won THIRD place for our show-case of nutritious bread products. Bread Power. It's a real thing.
This week, TWB is launching a new training to the East of our Kigali headquarters in an area called Ndera. As our team prepares for a new group of trainees, classroom sessions, and baking practice, we've reflected on the recent successes of our previous training group, in Western Rwanda.
One of the trainees in the rural west noted, "Even here, we eat breads," and it couldn't be more true.
Rutsiro District, the location of the training group, held a 3-day Expo in September and our team of TWB trainers and Mama Dunia co-op members (who had been in training for several weeks) rose to the challenge. Baking as many banana-peanut, carrot, and beet muffins as we could, we sold over 900 breads!
No matter how much we baked, we simply couldn't keep up with the demand!
At the expo, people crowded around our stand by the dozens - bread and hands and money went flying! The response was overwhelmingly positive, despite these nutritious muffins being completely new and unfamiliar to the rural customers.
At the end of the day, TWB & Mama Dunia came in an astounding 3rd place for the entire event. People's choice? Beet bread!
Our model for providing urban and rural women with education, jobs, and community-wide access to affordable, nutritious breads is working, and we couldn't be more excited. As we continue to expand throughout Rwanda, the success of each previous bakery group will also enhance the success of those that follow. Our training program gets better with each delivery, our recipe collection expands, and our brand gains greater visibility and recognition.
As we continue with the first week of training in Ndera, Eastern Rwanda, we will be applying everything we learned from the previous groups. Here's to another group of strong, powerful women who bake delicious bread!
Technology & The Future of Bakery Sales for TWB
Following three intensive days of collaboration, innovation, and pitches by nearly 15 professionals across professional sectors in Denver for the Posner Center Hackathon, TWB was selected as the winner and recipient for funds to implement the prototype application.
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.
