Slice of Hope: St. Louis, MO

On Tuesday, 90 St. Louisians gathered to celebrate this year’s success and learn more about our plans for 2018.  Every member of The Women’s Bakery family is special and on Tuesday we had the opportunity to offer our thanks to a group of individuals who have supported our work since it was a mere idea.   

Many of the attendees have known me since I was a child. Which, lucky for them (and me), a lot has changed since then – namely that I have grown into my height and wear a haircut that better suits my desired appearance now. Yet, even in my hay-day of awkward, these St. Louisians have stood by me and routed me on. And Tuesday was no exception. 90 people filled the room because they are interested in The Women’s Bakery and wanted to listen to us and learn more about our work.

It is a pleasure always to present The Women’s Bakery: to share with others why we do the work that we do. But Tuesday as particularly special because I was joined by three of my team members – three powerhouse women who have helped to build and shape The Women’s Bakery, and who shared more about our work from (mostly) their perspectives.

It was inspiring for me to watch Natalie, Heather and Meg as they presented. To listen to what they said and how they said it; to think about why they put emphasis on certain points, such as renewing their commitment to The Women’s Bakery, valuing the transference of a vocational education, and striving for even larger leaps of impact for our women in Rwanda. But it was also inspiring for me to watch their audience: The St. Louisians whom I’ve known forever were now seeing proof that The Women’s Bakery is graduating from project to a viable business concept.

I am excited for 2018. It will be a tough and an expensive year. Tough because we have undergone a major transformation this year – owning all of the bakeries we build – and expensive because this means our operating budget has now doubled because of it. But, we have chosen the pivot because we want to ensure that our mission to educate, employ and empower women remains our grounding and guiding objective. And, as this Tuesday so beautifully demonstrated, we are heartened by the rallying of our supporters who see the value in women having the opportunity to learn through us, to work with us, and to transform their own lives alongside us. 

The Power of a Product

Even though I work for The Women’s Bakery, leveraging bread and business as means to create opportunity for women in Rwanda (and one day, around the world), don’t be fooled: I’m not an expert baker. When I was incollege, if there was a celebration, I could absolutely bake – from a box. Dry cake or bread mixes were close friends of mine and I would often curate masterful creations of funfetti cakes.

A lot has changed since then. I have baked more breads in the last three years than I previously did my entire life. Using TWB specialty recipes as a launch pad, I have been unafraid in trying new things and getting better at being unafraid in the kitchen. I may not be a bread master, but I am good baker these days, and I am proud of that.

Yet, we – The Women’s Bakery – consistently return to the question – for those not in Rwanda, how can we connect others to our work? What kind of product could we introduce to new communities, particularly in the United States?

Dry Bread Mix. Boom.

Developing and scaling a dry bread mix – based on our TWB recipes – was Markey’s brain child from the beginning. And excitingly, we are now taking the steps to fully research, develop, and test this market opportunity.

For the last three months, we have tested the product within our TWB family, sending free mixes to interested individuals to bake, test, and provide their opinion with surveys. For those that participated, thank you. Your feedback and insights are informing our next iteration of the product, which will bring us closer to launch, and inherently, the ability to build a revenue stream for our work in East Africa and fully launch programs in the United States.

TWB's Program Manager, Hilary Hilsabeck, had her mother, Stacy, test and try the mix. It was a success!

We’re learning a lot.

We learned that roasting sweet potatoes for 40 minutes is a lot of prep work when you are considering buying a mix that is marketed as quick or instant. We learned that we should double the recipe. We learned that 88% of our testers would pay more for a product like ours that supports a social mission. We learned how to adjust the label. We learned that the uniqueness of using sweet potatoes is enticing for our customers. The earthiness, color, and simplicity of our packaging is appealing.

Now, we are taking this information and iterating – again.

TWB friend, Zach Verwey, tested the bread and used microwavable sweet potatoes. This kind of innovation is exactly what we hoped to see in the market testing phase.

This is not unlike what we are doing in Rwanda – constantly designing, delivering, learning, adapting, changing, and trying again. This is business. This, in our case is social business, always changing and adapting so that we not only meet our bottom line of profitability, but also, empowering the women we work with.

We have a vision for where we are going.

Our dry bread mix is not just a mix in a box. It’s a powerful product, one that will not only support the women we work with in East Africa, but also support women that we will, in the future, work with in the United States.

Seriously, that’s bread power.

Growth & Reflection

The story of TWB, in its entirety, includes the courage and the bold persistence of others.

I finished the Peace Corps in Rwanda in November 2012 and returned home to the United States, as did Co-Founder and Co-Director, Julie Greene. I then went back to Rwanda independently, against several family members’ and friends’ “better judgement” appeals, to build the Rwanda Women’s Bakery with my brother, David, from June – November 2013. We launched that bakery in September and it operated semi-successfully for about 6 months. Then, in March 2014, I got a call at 4am from the women in Rwanda saying, essentially, it was over. The bakery had failed. And in turn, I felt I had failed the women.

In December 2013, I had met the dynamic mother-daughter duo, Julie and Natalie Hornsby. Both Julie and Natalie had just visited Rwanda, on an insight trip for a well-known micro-financing organization, Opportunity International. Inspired, they were ready to roll up their sleeves and personally build something that mattered. When we met, it felt both fortuitous and timely.  

Julie and Natalie Hornsby were ready – ready to invest in this bakery idea and help the idea grow. However, I wasn’t so convinced. I was ready to stay in the United States. HOWEVER, contradictorily, I fervently believed in the bakery idea and wanted to build it. I knew the model could work.

Julie and Natalie Hornsby recognized my conflicted desires and pushed me toward the bakery. Natalie pushed gently. She was a constant source of encouragement. Together, we dreamed how and why the model could work, building the initial framework. Julie pushed consistently yet patiently. She listened to my dreams and fears, always cheering for the dreams.

One night in April 2014, however, Julie had heard enough of my waffling. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “That’s it. We’re doing this. You WILL build this bakery business and we are going to help you.”

Ok, I thought, here we go.

Julie & Natalie Hornsby

Then the question became, “How do I do this? How do I improve this bakery model, or rather, how do I build a model that works?” So, I called the smartest, most capable human I know – Julie Greene. If anyone could help me analyze the existing model, understand what didn’t work and why, and adapt the model for success, it was Julie Greene.

I went to visit Julie Greene in Denver and pitched the idea of building TWB in May 2014. It worked. Julie was in. Like all in. Emboldened and motivated by Julie Greene’s commitment, I returned to St. Louis to inform Julie and Natalie Hornsby that, finally, I too was all in. Julie and Natalie Hornsby jumped at my moment of certainty. They were all in.

Julie & Natalie climbing (and finishing!) the trek on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, simultaneous to visiting TWB's first training in Tanzania.  

For the remainder of 2014, the four of us built the initial model for The Women’s Bakery. We launched in Tanzania in February of 2015 and shortly thereafter welcomed our two additional founding members, Meg and Heather, shortly followed by our rock-star Rwandan team Aime, Yvonne, and Denyse.

In business school, the term used to refer to this courageous group of people is “early adopters.” This means they see and believe in a product, or an idea, before anyone else does. Julie and Natalie Hornsby, thank you for recognizing an idea worth building. Julie Greene, thank you believing in, actualizing, and leading this idea. Meg North and Heather Newell, thank you for enhancing this idea and propelling into a real model.

Thank you all for helping to build The Women’s Bakery.

Why I Support TWB

I identify as a woman and this is important because as a woman, I am keenly aware that the interconnectedness between gender, health disparities, economic disparities, and the victimization of women, often reveals the undeniable oppression of women.

I support The Women’s Bakery, and have done so for a couple of years, because TWB engages in work that improves the lives of people. During my social work training I had the opportunity to work with refugees resettling in Denver and was attune to the effects of lack of opportunity, especially for women. I saw the direct effect of gender oppression in the women I worked with, as many of them were survivors of rape, a common form of warfare. Since then, I’ve sought to work towards the empowerment of women, realizing that women have been too often left on the margins of the economy, of religion, of culture, and of society.

I currently work as a behavioral health therapist and a case manager in a primary care setting in the San Luis Valley in Colorado, one of the poorest regions in the nation. In reflecting on my current caseload, I was struck by the ubiquity of pain and suffering as a human experience regardless of gender. The moment brought me to my knees in tears. In that moment, I realized that my awareness to the inequalities faced by women, often results in me minimizing the suffering men also experience. Empathy may be the only way to disarm it.

I support The Women’s Bakery because they support empowering women – but in a manner that also elevates equity for all genders – men included. Men are a part of most of the training and men are often spouses of the women who are trained and employed at TWB bakeries. In many ways, they directly benefit from shared household incomes.

Finally, I support TWB because they support empathy, that is, the ability to see, feel, hear, know, and care for one another, through a shared human experience.

Incubator for Change (Part I)

Yvonne & The TWB Community

With astute business acumen, unswerving kindness, and forward-thinking visions, TWB Bakery Operations Manager, Yvonne Mukamutara, has been leading the Remera Bakery (Kigali) for over a year.

I had the opportunity to spend extensive time with Yvonne in January and February of this year, and in doing so, could see her strong ability to manage operations at the Remera Bakery, especially with day-to-day workflows, finances, and production.

Shortly after her 1-year anniversary, Yvonne and I decided that we wanted to collaborate and write a blog together. We felt our voice could be strongest when piecing together TWB across oceans, cultures, and insights.

So, we are writing together on this blog to show that working together can look a multitude of varying, powerful ways. Our blog is simple: understanding how TWB acts as an incubator for change. In addition to our own ideas, we also wanted to speak with the TWB women in Kigali, to our trainers, and to our senior staff, specifically to understand how they have changed over the year.

So, here are our voices, put together to show how TWB is this “incubator for change” transforming lives at all levels.

We will share the voices of our organization with a two-part series - highlighting the voices of our staff and from the women in our bakeries. This week, we've collected insights and reflections from our TWB team.

Enjoy! #breadpower #team #togetherwerise

Reflections from TWB Staff

“It is amazing to reflect on the last three years: TWB has literally gone from a nascent idea to a robust reality. That reality has been shaped and carried out by a dedicated, compassionate, unparalleled group of people. I’ve learned a lot about working with people building TWB - how to engage, learn from, support and ultimately empower people. This is the essence of TWB, right? I am still learning, of course, and I’m challenged (and fail) daily.  But at our core, TWB is people-centric and people-powered. 

TWB has also taught me how to rebound. So much can and does go wrong, or not according to plan, or not as well as it should. So many times people turn you away or leave. Progress can be slow and hard-won. But it’s still progress. And when you fail, you’re fail forward. So when you stand up, you’re a step closer to where you want to be. Thus, you keep going, listening, modifying and pivoting, but you go.”

- Markey 

“TWB is constantly stretching and challenging me-- every day I am pushed to look at things from unique angles, to incorporate a diversity of viewpoints rather than relying solely on my own ideas, and to exercise a level of flexibility and fluidity unparalleled in my previous jobs. Top takeaway from 2016: Be quick on the pivot.”

- Julie 

“In TWB I have learnt a lot, not just how to bake breads and cakes, but more about administration, working in a team, finance, and I believe there still much more to learn, which will help me to make my contribution as TWB grows. I am very excited to be part of the TWB Rwanda. And I am hoping to keep learning a lot about our great work.”

- Yvonne 

"Over the last year and a half, TWB has become a family - working side by side with inspiring, passionate colleagues has reminded me that together we can make a difference. While some days our gains are small, I always remind myself that the little things in life are often the most impactful. Working in Rwanda has challenged me to be creative in finding solutions to all problems, forced me to work outside my own cultural norms, and live life through the eyes of others. I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with TWB and grateful for the support from my colleagues, who believe in my abilities to positively contribute to our model."

- Meg 

"My TWB role over the last one and a half years has helped me gain more confidence particularly in classroom set up while conducting training sessions. As a startup business company, I learned a lot about what it takes to start and operate a business in Rwanda. Making new friends is always my top goal, so I have made a lot of friends from TWB's trained graduates, interns and partners." 

- Aime 

“I have always been passionate about empowering, supporting, and advocating for women, but have sometimes felt insufficient, ineffective, or unqualified. I carry insecurities, as we all do, and TWB has allowed me to identify, work through, and then shatter them. Through our work, and my job, I believe in what we do, and my role within it. I have learned in the past year that it takes all of us to accomplish meaningful change. I too, like the women we work with and for, have a voice and I can let it be heard.”

- Heather

“My work with TWB has taught me on how to have proper nutrition every day. Additionally, TWB gave me an opportunity to meet with many more rural women in Rwanda and I have seen that there is so much I can do to help them improve their lives. TWB has reminded me of how important women’s empowerment is for me.”

- Denyse

Our Global Bakery

If you are from St. Louis, you are all-too-familiar with the two most common questions asked of those who live and work here.

First, the unavoidable socio-geographic litmus test:  

Where did you go to high school?

And, if you are working in the world of philanthropy with a mission that reaches beyond our city and county lines, the inevitable:

But why aren’t you doing this work in St. Louis, especially when we have so many problems in our own backyard?

And it’s true. St. Louis is rife with challenges that intersect the lines of race, poverty, environment, and employment. From the Delmar Divide to the Bridgeton Landfill, we have our own slew of social inequities that disproportionately affect the poor and minority populations. Why, then, would—or should— someone support a bakery in East Africa to create jobs for women (and men) who they will most likely never meet?

I, for one, believe that the answer is simple:

Because we are all people.

Yes, it is undeniable that we live in changing times; yet, despite the rise of nationalism and the backlash of globalization, our shared humanity is, and will forever be, undeniable. Whether you live in Ferguson or in the far reaches of the African bush, we are all people. Suffering is suffering. Opportunity is opportunity. And love is love—compassion bound by empathy, an unstoppable force that cannot be contained by lines on a man-made map.

Philanthropy itself means love of humanity. And this year, St. Louis proved why it is said to be one of the most philanthropic cities in the United States. You, St. Louis, love well, deeply, without border or boundary. This year, you, our friends and our neighbors, single-handedly helped us open 2 bakeries in Rwanda, training 54 women and men. You asked us the familiar questions and the hard questions, all the while listening whole-heartedly, allowing the mission of The Women’s Bakery to capture your heart and imagination.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making our work possible—for helping us create jobs where they are desperately needed.

Thank you for believing in the power of people to change their own lives.

Thank you believing in the transformative power of bread.

And, perhaps most importantly, thank you for believing in us.

TWB LTD Growth in Rwanda

A lot has changed in just one year for TWB Rwanda. Since our official business registration in August of 2015, TWB has been working as a social enterprise, specializing in training programs and bakery business launch for groups of women throughout Rwanda.

Our first training group of 15 women was conducted in Nyabisindu, a neighborhood within the capital city of Kigali, launched October 2015. Over the course of several months, the women learned basic business skills including inventory and stock management, production cost calculation, sales strategies, and record keeping. The group also studied bakery specific business skills, as well as intensive training in baking and nutrition. All of this was made possible by TWB’s first Rwandan staff, Aime Nshizirungu, who co-facilitated the entire training in Kinyarwanda. Not only did Aime ensure the curriculum was comprehensible in the local language and context, he also fostered relationships with each of the trainees, providing support and encouragement in their lives in and out of training.

In July 2016, 8 women from this training group launched a bakery in their Remera community, with the support of TWB. Over the last five months, they have been working hard to introduce their nutritious, high quality bread products to the community. Their success has been driven daily by our second Rwandan team member- Yvonne Mukamutara. Yvonne joined TWB in February 2016 as an intern while in her last year as a finance student at University of Kigali. She quickly adapted to the TWB team and played an integral role in the Remera Bakery launch in July. Yvonne concluded her internship and was hired on full time by TWB in September. Since July, she has been working in the Remera Bakery as the Operations Manager—organizing daily operations, managing 8 women who work daily in the bakery, seeking out sales opportunities, promoting hygiene and quality products, and managing finances. As if that were not enough, Yvonne is also the women’s mentor and a constant support. She knows who needs extra money for their child’s school field trip, who needs extra clothing, who is registered for health care and who has a sick family member. Yvonne ensures that the women’s needs are being meet, not only at work but also at home.

Without both Aime and Yvonne’s dedication, passion, and hard work, the Remera bakery would not be what it is today.

Following the Remera Bakery launch, TWB was scheduled to begin two more trainings in 2016. To do so, we brought on our third Rwandan team member, Denyse Uwineza. Denyse joined TWB just one week before our second official Rwanda training program began in the small, rural community of Bumba in the Western Province of Rwanda. Denyse put in a long week working with Aime to understand the TWB curriculum and to familiarize herself with the mission and vision of TWB. Then, she jumped right into 6 weeks of training in the west, initially supporting Aime as he taught the lessons, and eventually taking the lead on some lessons herself. A quick and eager learner, Denyse is now co-facilitating her second training with Aime at our newest training site in Ndera, just east of Kigali. And, she has already contributed to training improvements and new curriculum content!

As TWB foresees even more growth in 2017, we gratefully reflect on the growth we have seen from summer 2015 through December 2016. Our Rwanda team is now made up of two American staff and three Rwandan staff, all of whom contribute to TWB’s work in Rwanda in immeasurable ways. We would not be where we are now, planning to conduct 3-5 new trainings in the upcoming year and looking to hire 3-5 more Rwandan staff, without the daily commitment of our current team. Their commitment to TWB, and most importantly to improving the lives of the women we work with through education, employment, and nutrition, has brought us to where we are today.

A huge thank you to TWB Team Rwanda! We can’t wait to see what next year brings!