Rapid urbanisation entailed the loss of traditional skills and agricultural know-how. For villagers, who were former farmers, this meant the bereavements of their livelihood. The majority of young men seek work opportunities in urbanised communities, abandoning their rural hometowns. While villager women, play an active role in sustaining their households, they themselves have no work opportunities in their neighbourhoods. As bread-winners for their families, some women help themselves by offering small services, yet local micro-businesses can barely compete with low priced market goods. Women in the southern Village of the Al-Gharirah depend on home-baked sun-leavened bread as an essential nutrition basis for their families. However, women expressed twofold challenges around home-baking. The rising prices of traditional oven materials, workmanship and gas cylinders increasingly make self-baked bread less affordable.

Shamsi helps provide affordable home-baked bread, enabling women to offer a healthy nutrition-basis to their households. Time saved from attending to fire, spares women more time to take part in alternative activities such as work and education. This creates gender-equal income opportunities in the rural community.