Midnight Baker

I wanted delicious inclusion.

A few years ago, a friend told me about the concept of Ubuntu which is a Nguni Bantu term from southern Africa.

Starting The Midnight Baker was the opportunity for me to create something from scratch. I could fold my core values of compassion and responsibility into the fabric of its make up.

I wanted to create the kind of work environment that I would want to work in.

I wanted to make a place where everyone felt really safe, heard, seen, and respected.

Ubuntu fundamentally means: I am because we are.

Intersectionality has been such a light bulb moment for me.

We don't exist alone on an island, as individuals in a vacuum. We're members of family units, friend groups, religious centers, communities, and workplaces. We know and see suffering as a universal human experience.

The feeling of wanting to do something never ever goes away.

I knew that I'd always wanted to do something of my own and that I wanted to work with food. Food brings people together.

As archbishop Desmond Tutu explains, 'A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole and are diminished when others are humiliated, tortured or oppressed.'

I wanted the principle of 'ubuntu' to be at the core of my business, the way that we treated and looked after each other, our customers, and the way we worked together.

One of the ways in which we can support our community is by sharing our bread with them.

[Intersectionality] explains the interconnected and compounding effect that belonging to each one of these groups can have to create a unique experience or challenge.

[Intersectionality] is so important and useful in highlighting where privilege and injustice meet.

As a wider society, we have a massive blindspot to the beliefs that undermine socially marginalized people and to the privilege that many of us have that continues the lack of understanding of equity.

Institutional discrimination needs to be acknowledged before real inclusive change can happen.

We need one another to survive, to grow, to learn, to live, to live, and to better ourselves. We can't do this alone.

We have a material dependence on one another.

Even through small actions such as self reflection and conversation, we can create ripples that go on to effect change no matter how small they may be.