“The Women’s Bakery? What’s that?”

Back in October 2015, I happened to bump into current TWB Director of Impact, Meg North, at a local restaurant in Kigali. I was a newly minted Peace Corps Volunteer, and she was launching a social enterprise focusing on women’s empowerment and education, through baking bread- The Women’s Bakery. The following trajectory felt like fate.

About 10 months later, TWB’s Founder and Co-Founder, Markey and Julie, gave a presentation at my Mid-Service Conference, and I learned they were both Rwanda Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). I was completed moved by their hybrid business model, their focus on women and their successful launch of bakery operations in Kigali. Their approach was innovative, holistic and matched perfectly with my vision for international development and public health solutions. I still had a year left of my Peace Corps service but made it a point to keep in touch and follow TWB’s activities. I even started baking bread at my site!

Then, in March 2017, TWB and The Peace Corps partnered on an event, Let Girls Ride, in honor and support of International Women’s Day. This bike ride began in the lush green hills of Northern Rwanda and ended, 70 km later, in the cityscapes of Kigali. The project had two goals: promoting girl’s empowerment, education and gender equality and fundraising through solidarity rides in the U.S. to help TWB purchase a brand new bike for bread transport.

I was hooked. Not only did I had the incredible opportunity to meet and collaborate with TWB staff during my service, I spent two years in my rural Rwandan community designing and executing food security, nutrition, and hygiene projects through a women’s empowerment lens. I felt that joining the TWB team was the perfect next step after my Peace Corps service and the beginning of a meaningful career.

Now, as the The Women’s Bakery Program Manager, I am looking forward to managing all existing and upcoming bakery projects in Rwanda, including overseeing trainings, problem solving with the wicked smart TWB team, and empowering women through business training, education and health promotion. I feel so lucky to have this role. This week I hit the ground running with bakery visits, team meetings, strategizing solutions and, of course, eating bread!

After one week, I’ve seen the determination, perseverance and grit it takes to operate a bakery, manage a team and balance daily tasks with a broader vision.

I’ve seen the power of bread and the impact it has on women’s lives. I’ve seen joy, and I’ve seen struggle. I’ve witnessed the most passionate people dig deep to find sustainable solutions to complicated issues.

And the thing I’m most excited about? Watching women realize their full potential, autonomy, and not allowing anyone or anything stop them.

Looking Ahead

2016 has been a year of growth for TWB. Our model has evolved and grown in the last year, and while it still resembles the original concept, it is far more robust and professional. We designed TWB to be a social enterprise – a baking educational service for hire in Rwanda. We manage nearly every aspect of the startup, launch, and operation of our bakeries in Rwanda. Because of the drive and intellect of our team, we have become experts in this field and our services are being sought after by large organizations, companies, and enterprising individuals.

Building on this momentum, 2017 will be a year of analysis. We are so close to solidifying our model. This may sound strange because we’ve been operable for two years, but like most startups, TWB’s model has gone through innumerable iterations. It’s like an experiment – you have an end goal (or multiple end goals), and you’re trying to find the correct, most efficient, most easily replicable means to achieve that goal. That’s where TWB is right now. We have most of our end goals in sight, and now is the time to test different means for how best to achieve those end goals.

A singular goal for 2017, from which our other goals stem, is to build lasting bakeries. As Julie Greene, TWB’s Co-Founder/Co-Director points out, “profitability means sustainability,” and I agree. We strive to code sustainability into every piece of our model, but we’re learning that sustainability tends to be a “product of,” not a “precursor for.” That is, critical thinking is a product of training and practice. And sustainable bakeries are (most often) a product of profitability.

So how do we do that? How do we ensure that each bakery we build or help to launch will be profitable without TWB staff there every day of operation for an indefinite period of time? Good question! That’s what we will spend most of 2017 answering. We’re close – we have robust projections and hypotheses for bakeries’ profitability, but 2017 will be the year to test these operational variations.  

Why do sustainable bakeries matter? This question contains multiple answers and illuminates many of our other end goals. Sustainable bakeries provide a group of women with consistent and growing incomes. That’s job security. And it’s also opportunity. Women can rely on their work at the bakeries and choose where, when, and how to invest their earnings. Sustainable bakeries provide suppliers (farmers) and buyers (shop-keepers) consistent business. That’s micro-economic activity that can self-improve and correct. Sustainable bakeries also provide community members consistent access to nutritious bread. That’s Good business.

The ancillary benefits that radiate from sustainable bakeries are motivating (to say the least) and conclusive. They’re what make TWB’s model not only plausible, but powerful. Powerful because we are using business – bakeries – as a medium to achieve multiple grades of social good. It’s like a chain reaction: by building a bakery that is profitable, we help to create a system that lasts as long as the women work and works on behalf of a community’s well-being.

Thus, 2017 will be the year to analyze and perfect the profitability of our bakeries. We will do so by taking a deep dive into our model – testing various aspects, building on what works, and boldly tossing what doesn’t. Our long-term goal is still scale – 100 more women trained and 10 bakeries in Rwanda – but to achieve sustainable scale (and real impact), we will first focus on profit.