Education & Nutrition are the Keys to Life
We will keep nutrition at the core of what we do so that through education and nutrition, healthy opportunities can abound.
The Women’s Bakery (TWB) is a social enterprise that empowers women through education and business. A key component of our work is providing opportunities for knowledge gain, especially around core topics like health and nutrition. However, advocating for nutrition opportunities within the home and the community is a process.
TWB first promotes nutrition by teaching women in Rwanda about the value of the using natural ingredients, such as carrot, pumpkin, and banana. Ultimately, these ingredients are sourced in our bread products so that the community-at-large can access them.
TWB also aims to address malnutrition through our Nutrition Extension Program, where women can receive additional trainings on specialty health topics, like breastfeeding or child development. TWB assesses the need for health education by conducting surveys and data follow-ups in the sites where we have worked. If there are gaps in knowledge, topics, or nutrition-specific issues, we can work to integrate those ideas into the curriculum.
Through reception of feedback we have been able to understand that whenever a woman is educated, then the whole family has the potential to receive this education, too.
The idea of a country without high rates of malnutrition is desirable for us and this is what we are constantly striving for.
We will keep on educating women so that families can be educated. We will keep nutrition at the core of what we do so that through education and nutrition, healthy opportunities can abound.
That’s bread power.
Real Impact on Women
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.
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.
