The Christmas Day in 2019 started off as a typical merrymaking occasion for Specioza Mukandayambaje and her family.

Like many other families, Mukandayambaje, her husband and their four children celebrated the day together, exchanging best wishes and having a good time. 

It was a seamless day and they were about to cap it all off with a family dinner.

"It was about 7p.m when it started raining,” the 41-year-old resident of Nyarugenge District recalled. "Initially, we thought it was just another downpour and didn’t pay much attention.”

Soon after, she said, "hell broke loose.”

Their home had been flooded with stormwater.

"It was so scary, we had never seen anything like it,” she said.

Specioza Mukandayambaje speaks to The New Times, on the banks of Mpazi drainage channel, on Monday. Photo: James Munyaneza.

Their house stood a few metres from Mpazi drainage channel in a high-risk lowland slum of Kimisagara Sector, Nyarugenge. It is the area where rainwater from different higher grounds of Kimisagara, Nyamirambo and Gitega converge with a ferocious intensity and speed as it roars down the Nyabugogo area.

We ran out for dear life, she recounted. "What followed was catastrophic: we watched as the house we lived in and others where we had tenants collapsed before our eyes.”

No one died but it was the beginning of our nightmare, Mukandayambaje told The New Times on the eve of the International Women’s Day, on Monday. "Life has not been the same, it’s bitter by the day.”

She said that besides the main house in which they lived they also lost four one-bedroom units on that dreadful night.

"Several other houses in our neighbourhood also collapsed but later, especially in February (two months later) but that night it’s only us who lost our houses.”

Yet, what followed made it even more distressing for Mukandayambaje and her children – two girls and two boys.

Abandoned by husband in wake of disaster

"We rented a much smaller house,” she said. "But that was not the main problem.”

The most difficult part, she said, was that her husband deserted her and their children.

"He went back to the village and left us to suffer alone,” she said.

The couple had lived together for nearly two decades with their first born, a daughter now aged 17.

 "Our world turned upside down,” she said. "We lost everything and had to start from scratch.”

A view of one of the new appartment blocks near Mpazi drainage on Cyahafi-Gitega side of the channel in Nyarugenge.

Pressed further, Mukandayambaje said that her husband had another wife upcountry, in Kivumu, Kamonyi District, where he returned.

"He didn’t say much to us when he was leaving, I guess he was traumatised from the whole thing; I really don’t know what to make of it,” she said.

After losing their home and their main source of livelihood (they fetched Rwf25,000 a month from each of the four tenants), Mukandayambaje and her children found a small house to rent on the other side of the drainage channel, in Cyahafi, Gitega Sector, not far from the spot where their house stood.

Shortly after, Mukandayambaje, an on-and-off street vendor for mostly tomatoes in Nyabugogo, took a decision to take three of her youngest children to her home village in Muhanga District.

"It was a hard decision but I had no choice,” she said with hindsight. "It affected my children but I couldn’t afford the school fees here in town, in the village it’s a bit easier.”

Her eldest child is now in boarding school in Huye District and only stays with her mother on holidays. "A well-wisher is helping with her school fees.”

"My children have been affected by these shocks,” she pointed out, lamentably. "First, losing their home, then their father deserting us and also having to change schools. All this has affected them, psychologically, even in their performance at school.”

Residents use a makeshift bridge after heavy rains washed away a vital bridge in Bishenyi wetland in Kamonyi District. 

She added, "At the moment I am alone but life is still very hard because I have no consistent source of income, even the small business on the street – which, by the way, is illegal – is not working for me. I would wish to be wish all of my children but it's not possible.”

Mukandayambaje and her children are just one example of how climate change has taken its toll on particularly women and children. Indeed, this year’s theme for the International Women’s Day is ‘Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow’.

According to UN Women, there is a "vital link between gender, social equity and climate change and "without gender equality today, a sustainable future, an equal future, remains out of reach.”

"Women and girls experience the greatest impacts of the climate crisis as it amplifies existing gender inequalities and puts women’s lives and livelihoods at risk. Across the world, women depend more on, yet have less access to, natural resources, and often bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel,” it says.

Ensure ‘child-centered adaptation’

And, according to the UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell, "the climate crisis has exposed nearly every child, on every continent, to greater risk of more frequent, intense, and destructive climate hazards, from heatwaves and droughts to cyclones and flooding, from air pollution to vector-borne diseases.

"But for some children, the climate crisis is more than a heightened risk. It is a life-threatening reality.”

The project includes upgrading housing in the Gitega-Kimisagara lowlands as well as the Mpazi drainage  channel. 

She said in a statement that the world "cannot continue to overlook children as it grapples with the existential threat of climate change and environmental degradation. It is time to put our children at the centre of climate action.”

"First and always, governments need to deliver on ambitious emissions reductions. This remains the only long-term solution, as climate adaptation has limits. But we need to take action – right now – to help the most vulnerable children, living in countries with the lowest per-capita emissions, adapt to the impacts of climate change, so they can survive and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

"Preparing countries and communities through climate resilient development with a major focus on adaptation is the most effective way to protect vulnerable children’s lives and family livelihoods. It is proven to reduce child climate risk. It builds resilience to future, expected climate shocks. It delivers real economic benefits.”

But it won’t come easily, she warned, noting that many countries "either entirely lack adaptation plans, or have plans that do not protect or address their specific and urgent needs.  This means most children are still unprotected and unprepared for the intensifying impact of climate change.”

"UNICEF is calling on every country to commit to ensuring child-centered adaptation is a centerpiece of all climate plans as a matter of highest priority.

In Rwanda, extreme weather events have increased both in frequency and intensity over the last few years, with dire consequences.

According to figures from the Ministry of Emergency Management, at least 802 people have lost their lives since 2018 due to disasters, mostly floods, stormwater and lightning strikes. Up to 1,279 people were injured in disasters over the same period, while extreme weather events also destroyed houses (34,568 units), and killed 1,157 cattle and thousands of other livestock. Disasters also wreaked havoc on thousands of hectares of crops, as well as public infrastructure like schools, health centres, roads, bridges, among others.

Damaged road worsens burden of unpaid care work 

The Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion says that climate change has increased the burden of unpaid care work on women, including through complicating their responsibility to gather and produce food, collecting water and firewood or charcoal.

What remains of the bridge that was washed away by severe floods in Bishenyi wetland, Kamonyi  District last month. 

This year’s International Women’s Day, the ministry said in a concept note, is an opportunity to "look into the existing challenges in gender equality vis-a-vis climate change adaptation, mitigation, and resilience as enablers of transformation and hence, develop measures and strategies.”

One place where climate change has recently increased the burden of unpaid care work on women is Kamonyi District, where a major bridge collapsed last month following a heavy downpour that resulted in severe flooding of Bishenyi wetland and destroyed the bridge linking Runda and Rugalika sectors.

"We are now paying much more for firewood,” said Cecil Madamu, 58, a resident of Kigese Cell, Rugalika Sector, who was carrying a batch of firewood on her head from Runda sector. "Previously, firewood would be transported in a truck to a trading centre near my home but this is no longer the case, I am forced to carry it myself over a long distance or else I pay more if young men or taxi-motos carry the wood to our neighbourhood.”

The damaged road also forced the only taxi that used to ply the Runda-Rugalika route to suspend the service, with now mostly women and children from Rugalika having to either walk long distances or pay more for taxi-moto rides to go to the market in Runda.

"I had never seen the kind of rain we had in February,” Madamu said. "It destroyed our crops, washed away our bridge and it triggered an increase in prices of commodities because traders are saying they are now using taxi-motos to carry merchandise because the road is impassable to cars,” Madamu added.

Children too have suffered disruptions as a result of the damaged bridge, with some forced to walk to school or use taxi-motos, which are more expensive than a commuter taxi.

One school has improvised through using two taxis, whereby one drops off students to a point where they can cross over on a makeshift bridge and find the taxi waiting on the other side.

"Before this improvised bridge was put in place (about four days after the downpour) it was very unsafe, especially for children and women to pass here in the evenings,” said Anita Yesuniwemahoro, aged 17, on Monday. "It was a big challenge to go to the market,” she said, adding that it is relatively easier today because taxi-motos are now able to cross using the makeshift bridge.

Silas Nkundanyirazo, who extracts sand from the Bishenyi stream, said that the bridge collapse has affected students in the area. "It collapsed when my daughter and other children were at school on the other side and they had to endure a much longer distance to reach home,” he said, adding that women and children have borne the worst brunt of the situation. "When it rains they really struggle to find firewood and to reach the market.”

Reverien Kazimwoto, a resident in the area, said the floods stopped many students from attending school for a number of days. "This was the first time we saw Bishenyi flooded at that scale," he said, adding that he personally lost a lot crops, including maize, yams and cabbage, to the rain. 

Martha Kandame, a member of Ubumwe Bugamije Iterambere cooperative, also said the rain destroyed their plantation of beans, maize and soybean in the vast wetland.

"We incurred a huge loss to the extent that I might not even be able to pay my loan on time let alone make any profit,” said the 53-year-old widow, who has eight dependants.

A newly constructed appartment block on the Kimisagara side of the Mpazi drainage channel on March 7. 

Indeed, there is growing recognition that women and children are taking the hardest knock from climate change, and there is a need for action.

In the capital Kigali, officials at the City Hall have embarked on an ambitious slum upgrading project, which includes improving housing and drainage systems in shanty neighbourhoods. This is part of implementation of the new city master plan, which has been praised for being inclusive.

Hope of redemption

"We have seen cases where men abandon their families after disasters have hit,” Solange Muhirwa, Chief of Urban Planning, told The New Times on Monday. "The consequence is that some of these women are forced to do certain things they would otherwise not have done, for the sake of their children, some end up becoming sex workers, others street vendors.”

Specioza Mukandayambaje, the Cyahafi-Gitega mother who was deserted by her husband, is hoping that she will be considered for a home under the slum upgrading project. Her neighbourhood is one of the sites where the city council is implementing the project. Several households either side of Mpazi drainage channel – Cyahafi-Gitega on one side and Kimisagara on the other – have already secured apartments in two multi-story housing units that have hitherto been completed.

Construction of other units is ongoing. The model is such that officials agree with homeowners in the targeted slums to give up their plots of land in exchange for an apartment in a new block commensurate with the value of their original land.

"Our plot of land is still there and I hope that we will one day exchange it for a home in the new buildings,” said Mukandayambaje. "That would be a dream come true, renting without a stable job is just not sustainable.” 

Research for this report was done with UNICEF support.