Bakery Initiatives

The Problem

One of the problems we face in the bread industry is the fact that it is dominated by males, where as according to our experience and research we found that 85% of those who show interest in the sector are women. Unfortunately, these women are not given the chance for employment even though they posses the right skills and are eager to learn.

Besides this, there is a pressing problem in Nigeria of youth unemployment. More than half of the youth population in Nigeria (18-35 years) is either unemployed or underemployed. This entails around 24,5 million of young men and women. Unemployment is higher in rural areas and women face additional barriers finding decent employment due to early family formation and low education rates. Women between the ages of 18 and 35, represent 53,9% of their age grade without employment or underemployment, and thus we recognize the need for vocational training for youths.

With our project we want to give young women the chance to gain employment in the bread industry while simultaneously fighting youth unemployment in Nigeria.

The Solution

With our project Empowerment and Employability, we aim to create entrepreneurship opportunities for young women in Nigeria. Our final goal is to train, empower and employ a total of 1,080 women (between the ages of 18 and 35).

With our project we apply two different approaches to empower and employ these young women. The Dough Hub and Bake-off Business model of baking bread and other products, and second, the Business Development Service provision to already existing bakeries to generate employment opportunities.

With these two approaches we aim to:

• Train and create 100 Bake-off Bakeries for entrepreneurship seeking women, who can contribute to 20% of the start up cost.
• Train and Match 400 young women to job opportunities as bakers and sales representatives by training them in basic bread, pastries and bread making as well as sales and inventory management.
• Create jobs for 100 women at the Dough hubs as supervisors, managers and drivers.
• Create, match and improve jobs for 580 women in already existing PBAN bakeries.

Additionality 

It is likely that with CFYE support, the project will be better designed, proceed more quickly, or reach more young people than it otherwise would have.

The support and experience of CFYE with youth and gender targets will help us reach more young women between the ages 18-35. And it will help us with empowerment and the creation of employment. Also, it will help us cover the rising cost of equipment and raw materials. Finally, the technical assistance of CFYE will help us learn more in the area of Monitoring and evaluation.