REALISING that handouts alone will never raise a person out of poverty, a non-profit organisation has embarked on a pilot project to develop community kitchens for urban B40 women to realise their potential.

The women are taught baking skills and beyond that, how to run a business by baking and selling their cakes and cookies.

The idea was mooted by Women of Will (WoW), which started the pilot project at the Batu Muda PPR flats in Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, recently.

WoW community kitchen project director Susheela Sabaratnam said women at the PPR flats in Batu Muda can sign up to receive training in baking, recipes, kitchen management and product marketing.

“Our pilot project is aimed at training women to bake and sell their products commercially,” Susheela told The Malaysian Insight.

PPR Batu Muda has seven blocks of apartments with 15 floors each and about 20 units per floor. Altogether, some 10,000 people live here.

Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh launched the WoW pilot kitchen last month.

The community kitchen project was aided with a grant from Khazanah Nasional’s Yayasan Hasanah and is the latest in WoW’s numerous projects for B40 women.

Founded in 2009 as TECH Outreach Malaysia before changing its name to WoW a few years ago, the organisation focuses specifically on women in the B40 category from households earning less than RM2,500 a month.

This is the criterion applied to the first batch of 10 women bakers.

Each woman is paid an hourly wage, even during the training phase and allowed to work in the community kitchen according to her schedule.

“We wanted it to be flexible for them so that they can choose how many hours to commit a day,” said Susheela, adding that they may have other jobs or young children to care for.

Susheela, who was formerly a human resource manager with the Impiana Group of hotels, said the training will not only help raise incomes but arm the women with skills needed to build better lives.

“We don’t just teach baking here but we train them on the aspects of food handling, inventory control, how to make healthier snacks and how to market the products.

“WoW brings in qualified chefs to train them in commercial baking and after that we ensure everyone is vaccinated,” said Susheela.

Although the kitchen only began in March, it received orders for 800 hampers this Raya season.

“We have already baked some 22,500 cookies so far,” said Susheela late last month.

“After that, we hope to supply companies with our healthier snacks for their pantries.”

As to the future, Susheela said the community kitchen could also serve as an area for the flat residents to use.

“We could teach more people how to bake and even organise birthday parties for the children here.”

Besides the community kitchen, WoW also has a micro-credit financing scheme for women in about 15 communities in the Klang Valley and Sabah.

Some 80% of the profits generated from the community kitchen is channelled back to the community, said Susheela. – June 5, 2019.