The fight of women in rural areas against poverty

Barefoot, an old lady with vaulted shoulders and the falling chest contracts her arms and lifts her spade high enough to plant it in the ground. The sun is increasingly crushing, its throat more and more dry, but Amélia, 86, repeats the same gesture, again and again, without slowing down the pace.

She was not a teenager that she already cultivated in the fields of Musanze, a district in northern Rwanda. “Today I no longer have much strength, but I have no choice,” explains this widow who has lost six of her ten children.

A country marked by the genocide of the Tutsis

His country, barely larger than Brittany, remains traumatized by the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis, followed by bloody reprisals against the Hutus. Améliane does not say a word of the tragedy: here, we return the earth, not the past. In the aftermath of the massacre, almost 70 % of Rwandans became a familymate (widows, orphans, etc.). Since then, they can inherit their husband’s property, access property but also present themselves to elections.

This country of the Great Lakes is also the only one in the world to be able to boast of having a majority of senators and deputies in Parliament. But these societal advances are still far from spreading in the much poorer rural areas. Where 83 % of the population lives.

Since 2022, the Face program (feminists for climate and environment alternatives*), which brings together twelve associations of Rwandan civil society, shoulders these women in order to improve their living conditions. The projects are generally aimed at offering alternatives at the local level, in order to prevent the effects of climate change and to respond to rural poverty.

* Program supported by the CCFD-Terre Solidaire, AFD, the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Fund for supporting feminist organizations (FSOF).

Women are taught “complementarity”

In the Musanze district, a few kilometers from the volcano national park where foreign tourists pay thousands of euros to meet the gorillas, Bernadette leaves her field after a big morning of work. The thirties take a stony path and walks with a good step. It’s time to get water.

The good days, the journey takes him twenty minutes. The bad, the triple. She fills her two cans without leaving her eyes the liquid gushing from the tap. This water, she needs it to cook and wash her four children in the morning before school. The mother ties up a scarf between one of the jerricans whom she slides behind her back.

The other is in balance on his head. Then she hit the road with a slower step. You have to be able to wear them, these 40 kg! “My husband has changed, now will also get the water, twice a week,” she slips, tight teeth, her neck stretched. A year ago, Bernadette was able to participate in a training in which women are taught the “complementarity” of tasks between spouses, failing to be able to employ the term “equality”, still rejecting in these traditional environments.

Better distribution of tasks between spouses

Before that, she had to manage to pick up dead wood on the edge of groves so that she could cook for her family. Her spouse nevertheless has a small forest … “I was not allowed to go,” she said. He preferred to sell this wood and keep the money for him rather than using it to pay the school uniforms of his children. “Here, money is the business of man,” adds Éliane, 26.

Married for six years in Pacific, by one year older, the young woman knows what she is talking about. When she only harvested misery for her work in the fields, he, as a minute help, could win up to 5,000 Rwandan francs per day (around 3.25 euros). He then entrusted 2,000 francs to the household. “The rest, I spent it at” Cabaret ” (Drinking flow where men like to meet around several beers, editor’s note) », Recognizes her husband, head down, while Eliane frowns.

Meanwhile, she tried home. Orphan from an early age, Pacific was used to helping his aunt when he lived in her house. “That’s why I wanted to get married early, I wanted to rest,” he said with a smile.

The young man with protruding muscles was transformed thanks to this formation. Today, he cooks and even cleanses his courtyard, under the disapproving view of the neighbors: “They say to me:” How can a married man pass the broom? “,” Your wife bewitched! ” He shruggs under his raspberry color polo shirt. More and more men are deaf earning the remarks of the community.

A few villages from there, Thomas, 44, returns home his face hidden under the heap of corn leaves which he carries on his head. “Take a photo!” He lets go to women occupied in front of his front door to peel mounds of garlic while singing. Françoise, his wife, smiles. For several years, they have been working hand in hand and have put themselves in agroecology, an environmentally friendly agricultural production.

They even had enough money to buy a cow, a real sign of social elevation. “For the past two years, I can finally eat two meals a day,” says the 41 -year -old peasant. A good fortune unexpected after four decades of undernutrition. Orphan at 8, Françoise had to take care of her younger brothers and sisters alone. When the stomachs shouted famine, siblings swallowed from the earth; On the splendid days, she ate steps of potatoes and beans.

A cook provided by the NGO Acord Rwanda

Arriving at Clémentine, 46, a smell of beef stew tickles the nostrils. It comes from what is called an “improved hearth”, a kind of stainless steel cylinder that retains heat and can be moved. The category above the traditional African hearth, composed of three stones on which the pot is deposited.

“It changes my life!” Before, I had to stay next to two or three hours to prevent the fire from going out, “said this mother to the jovial mine, while other villagers, her guests of the day, confirm the interest of the heart of the NGO Acord Rwanda. Now, Clémentine carries her cook to go to the laundry or even feed her cattle. “Me, when my husband returned and it was not ready, he was mad!” Adds Agnes, fifty.

Give a new path

As they devote less time to household chores, these peasants can now go to public meetings, every Tuesday. “When we learned that there were aids for women, it was too late, nothing left for us,” recalls Clémentine, who in the meantime obtained a goat from the government. Immaculate, she received a sow thanks to the face program.

The female put low in the fall of 2023. With the fruit of the sale of the piglets, the sixty -something woman paid for her first pair of sandals, at 4,500 Rwandan francs (2.93 euros). Before, when she spent money, it was mainly to buy new kitchen utensils. “Now I can go to church with beautiful shoes. I feel worthy! She said with a smile. She even acquired agricultural land.

Vulnerable young single mothers

At the other end of the country, near the border with Burundi, the drought external. Penina, 17, tries to calm the tears of her 9 month old. It is 31 degrees, the baby’s temples drip in sweat. “When I get her breast, milk does not come out,” whispers the mother, still a teenager and single, who has swallowed nothing for more than twenty-four hours. Also an orphan, she lived for some time in an older boy, then returned to live with her octogenarian grandmother and her 18-year-old sister, with a well-rounded belly.

Since then, Penina has been working in the fields, thanks to Safer Rwanda, an association helping young mothers girls, often pregnant after rape. “These women are very vulnerable. The main cause of these early maternities is poverty. Today, we are there to offer them a new path, ”explains Peace Mutei, Communication Advisor to Safer Rwanda.

Penina is struggling with her sister for a salary of 2,000 Rwandan francs per day (barely 1.28 euros). “We often fall asleep with an empty stomach,” she says, her gaze turned towards a lake below the color of the mud. It is this water that the family drinks, including the baby, when thirst becomes unbearable. On this piece of land, poverty may shine for a long time in the sun.