Community bakery offers women skills development, a big win for the community

Women from Soweto and surrounding areas like Kliptown benefit from an empowerment programme.

The ACFS Your Local Bakery, which is based in Jabavu, Soweto, trains women who want to learn how to start bake skills that enable them to start their own businesses.

More than 90 local women are now able to sustain their families and create job opportunities for other people in the communities.

The bakery is an initiative of Tiger Brands. The company, in an interview, told SA Positive News that the idea to start the bakery in the community of Jabavu was to create independent sustainable livelihoods by providing the women with the skills and knowledge to start their own home-based bakery businesses.

The bakery was established in 2019 with a donation of industrial kitchen equipment from Tiger Brands, including ovens, in addition, the company worked alongside ACFS to provide training to the women and appointed a head baker.

The company said women who are part of the programme are mostly vulnerable and they are the primary caregivers to their families.

The skills training over a period of one year. The company explained that during the year-long programme, women rotate between the bakery and while others take part in vegetable garden.

“This helps them as they learn how to grow and care for a food garden, and how to bake and run a home-based bakery business,” the company said.

Not all those who are trained started their own bakeries as some choose to rather focus on starting a small-scale farming in the form of vegetable garden which helps them to generate a sustainable income for themselves and their families.

Its executive director Bertha Magoge said she felt grateful for the Tiger Brands who started the bakery which is now benefiting the community of Jabavu and the other parts of the township.

“When you empower a woman with the skills to generate a sustainable livelihood, you bring prosperity and security to her household. ACFS is grateful to work alongside Tiger Brands to assist in the transformation of women especially those from marginalised communities,” Magoge said.

The company said its vision for the bakery is underlined by the company’s efforts to enable sustainable livelihoods and nurture economic participation in the communities where they operate as a means to strengthen household food security.

“As one of Africa’s largest listed food producers our community efforts aim to equip vulnerable people with skills and resources which enable them to become independent and provide for their own nutritional needs,” explained Preeya Naidu, Manager Socio-Economic Development, Tiger Brands.

According to the company, the operating structure for the bakery is divided into two – it provides goodwill in the form of being a source for food for community members in need and supporting an after-school feeding programme and generating a small income to support the sustained operation of the business by selling baked goods.

It currently produces 250 loaves of bread per day at a cost of R12 per loaf.

Editor’s note: Not all those who are trained started their own bakeries as some choose to rather focus on starting a small-scale farming in the form of vegetable garden which helps them to generate a sustainable income for themselves and their families.

Description: Women from Soweto and surrounding areas like Kliptown benefit from an empowerment programme.

Editor: Anirlé de Meyer

Project manager: Anirlé de Meyer