Hope for Life Bakery

 

There’s a part of Hope for Life that I’ve not yet written about – the bakery. But, as always, a little background first…

Hope for Life (HFL) was founded almost 40 years ago, in 1986, by a French SMA priest and a handful of Ghanaian friends with disabilities. I first came to be a part of it in 1996 when the French missionary left. It was a time when Hope for Life was well funded, as there were a couple of NGOs that helped cover a lot of our efforts, especially with children. After 3 years, I left to go back to school, believing that I would be able to do even more if I studied occupational therapy. Later, I realized that basically what I had loved and left behind with HFL was a lot of what I was studying with OT. HFL had given me immense hands-on experience in the community-based aspects of OT, and my studies were providing me with the theories behind OT approaches and broadening my mind and skills. I planned that I would ask to return to HFL when I finished my degree. (As it turned out, though, when I finished school, there were two others at HFL and no need for me at that time. I was asked to go to the Liberian refugee camp outside of Accra, instead.)

Around 25 years ago, while I was away, HFL submitted a proposal and received funding for a bakery project. The intention was to generate income for HFL and to provide employment, training and income-generating options for some of HFL’s members. The bakery has undergone various changes in its administration over the years, with varying results. When I came back to HFL in 2009, there was an SMA Dutch lay missionary running the bakery who was having some success in finding new customers. Yet, the bakery has never achieved the profits needed to assist with funding HFL’s activities and for the past few years there have been no HFL members employed or otherwise directly benefiting.

sugar bread cooling prior to bagging

bread oven

cooling racks to the right, slicers in the background

Following some mismanagement issues, the bakery closed for a brief period around 2019. This coincided with COVID-19’s arrival, so it made sense to take a pause. When I returned to Ghana again about a year and a half ago, there was a Catholic sister running it. The sister had come about 2 – 3 years prior to my return. Together with the baker, they had gradually found a market and built it up a little, eventually increasing production a bit. 

Emma, the baker, mixing

 

Emma bagging the butter bread

Richard, the assistant baker, working the rolling machine

However, assistance from the bakery towards HFL’s efforts was still not coming. Finally, 2 years ago, the head of Ghana SMA insisted that a portion of income from each loaf of bread sold be given to HFL. It took more than 6 months for that to begin, and, even then, it was less than half of what the SMA head had insisted upon.

 

Emma bagging the butter bread

loading the temporary delivery vehicle

The settled-upon contribution was a compromise and we (the HFL administration) agreed to it, as the other option would have been to receive nothing. The share of sales began coming a little over a year ago, which has helped a bit in our outreach efforts.

 

Kaneshi (a part of Accra) branch meeting

In October last year, disappointed with the lack of greater profit, the SMA boss asked us (the HFL administration) if we would take over running the bakery to see how it would go. Even though running a bakery is the last thing I want to do, we did as he asked…

It’s been a gradual learning process – with gradual progress. We see some profit, but a lot of other issues have become apparent – the machines and the delivery van had not been maintained (which is why there is a temporary, borrowed delivery vehicle pictured above - after we took over, I was able to raise donations specifically for another delivery van), staff had been promised raises for over a year and were getting discouraged that no increments in pay had come, a lack of structure and discipline for the staff, an almost non-existent and disorganized bookkeeping system, and more.

For the first month or so things were fine, as we were just beginning and we didn’t yet see some of the other issues. Gradually, however, we began to see them and there were a couple of months when it seemed the bakery took up all our time, in spite not wanting the bakery or the mushroom project to become our main focus. What would be the point of either of them if we are not directly involved with Hope for Life and its members? We have continued to attend branch meetings regularly, but for a while there was little time for additional outreach. 

Mamprobi branch meeting

Gradually we are getting a handle on these issues and are getting back to giving more focus to HFL and its members. For the past couple of months, we’ve been able to get out more and visit some of our members in addition to attending the branch meetings.   

 

Odorkor branch meeting

We do not need to remind ourselves that the bakery and mushrooms exist for HFL – they are not to become the primary focus or take away from HFL. Yet if they are to be successful, which will help HFL, then the bakery needs our attention. Fortunately, this need is becoming less constant and we are getting back on track with giving increased attention to the HFL members.