Empowering Women Together: The Bread and Butter Thing and Sodexo’s Award-winning Partnership
It’s no secret that we’re very proud of our partnership with Sodexo. They’ve supported us in so many different ways over the years, whether its through donating food, volunteering, mentoring or sharing their expertise. And now we’ve won an award together!
Accepting the People & Community award at this year’s Franco-British business event
At this year’s French Chamber of Great Britain’s Franco-British business awards, we scooped the People & Community award for the impact made through the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation.
In 2021, we began working with the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation to help improve access to healthy food. As our partnership grew, we launched the Empowering Conversations initiative in 2023. This offered our members the chance to get practical advice, counselling and try creative activities through a series of workshops to help them find education, training, and employment opportunities.
Since launching in April 2023, we’ve run 27 sessions, reaching 500 women around Greater Manchester. Seven women have since secured paid work, and 44% have made progress through counselling, education, or volunteering. This shows the powerful impact of personalized support.
Bread and Butter member, Susan took part in the project and said, “I found out about the Empowering Conversations sessions whilst volunteering with TBBT once a week. I was feeling very isolated after having children, being at home and out of work for so long. I wasn’t used to being around people, so it was helpful to sit with other people and talk about myself and my circumstances.
“I opened up and it built my confidence, I still need more to get back on my feet fully, but it’s helped me a lot. I could feel the difference in myself walking out of the course to when I walked in. Following the Empowering Conversation session, I felt motivated to continue with a Level 2 course in Mental Health with Manchester Adult Education.”
Sodexo Sustainability Director, Claire Atkins-Morris said, " We’re absolutely thrilled that our Empowering Conversations work and our partnership with The Bread and Butter Thing have been recognized with the prestigious People & Community award! This accolade highlights the impact we’re making by empowering women through the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation. Empowering women is fundamental to the Foundation’s mission to eradicate food insecurity and its root causes, and it’s wonderful to see our efforts acknowledged in this way. Our long term partnership with Bread and Butter is helping to build stronger, more resilient communities. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this achievement.”
The Bread and Butter Thing CEO, Vic Harper said, “Bread and Butter is all about strengthening communities and we think that supporting women is key to this. When women thrive, their families and communities do too. We speak to our female members on a daily basis and understand the barriers they face when it comes to confidence and getting back into work. Empowering Conversations has been invaluable in helping our members look positively towards their future.”
Building on our partnership with Sodexo we are also supporting our communities to access the SheWorks project lead by Sodexo’s HR team, which offers additional support with CV workshops and mentoring.
