CONWAY, Ark. (December 16, 2015) – Hendrix College alumna Heather Newell ’11 is applying her passion for international development and women’s empowerment in her role as the U.S. Programs Officer for
The Women's Bakery, an education-centered nonprofit committed to empowering women and developing women-owned businesses. Specifically, The Women’s Bakery seeks to spur women's bakery startups in East Africa (Rwanda and Tanzania).
“We train women in business, nutrition, and baking,” said Newell. “Currently, we have two bakeries in Tanzania, and with our East African headquarters in Kigali, Rwanda, we launched our most recent training group this fall. They will open their bakery in a
couple of months.”
Newell’s interest in East Africa began at Hendrix, where she met Rwandan students and took an African development course during her junior year. She studied abroad in Ghana, played on the field hockey team and participated in women’s Bible study, Hendrix-Miller Center mission trips, and the Menifee tutoring program. She was
also a volunteer for the family center at The Gathering Place, a women’s day shelter in Denver, Colorado.
After graduation, Newell was a Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda (2011-2013), where she met Markey Culver and Julie Greene, fellow Peace Corps volunteers who co-founded The Women’s Bakery.
“We collaborated on a girl’s camp project (GLOW CAMP) and when The Women’s Bakery was seeking additional staffing a couple of years later, I was already connected with the organization because of our Peace Corps connection,” said Newell, who was interning as a
microfinance fellow with Urwego Opportunity Bank in Kigali, Rwanda, when the opportunity at The Women’s Bakery opened up. “My involvement thus far has been planning, teaching, strategy, and partnership building. I am able to advocate and promote the educational opportunities of the women we work with in East
Africa.”
“When presented with this role, I knew opportunities for business development, nonprofit structure, and international work were going to be areas in which I would grow,” she said. “Additionally, since taking the position, I have learned the effect of empowerment and how to
structure an opportunity that maintains the dignity of the population that we serve.”
It isn’t the type of career opportunity she anticipated when she was a college student.
“My role with The Women’s Bakery wasn’t what I expected in terms of scope,” said Newell. “As an undergraduate, I figured my reach would be within the local community I worked alongside (perhaps in Denver). I wasn’t sure that my skills would fit into an entirely
different culture, but the great news is that they do! After serving in the Peace Corps, my heart, passion, and energies have been filtered over 3,000 miles away.”
Within the next couple of years, Newell would like to pursue a counseling degree that emphasizes an international component.
“I see myself counseling and empowering women for the duration of my career,” she said. “I am particularly interested in working with women of different cultures.”
“I love the fact that The Women’s Bakery places the women we work with at the forefront of possibility. They are capable, intelligent, and able. They come from circumstances that we could hardly understand and, yet, they make it work,” she said. “When they are trained and
challenged to develop and invest their time into a new bakery, they DO it. They change their lives because they have secured an opportunity and have done something with it. It’s crazy inspiring.”
About Hendrix College
Hendrix College is a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Founded in 1876 and affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884, Hendrix is featured in Colleges That Change Lives:
40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges and is nationally recognized in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings for academic quality, community, innovation, and value. For more information, visit
www.hendrix.edu.