“GOD lives in people and he’s sent me to help you.” These were the words spoken to Assumpta, a single parent, by one of the Mothers’ Union members at a time when she and her nine children faced eviction from their home in Rwanda. That intervention has led to her teaching a group of fellow mums how to sew and provide for their families.
One of those women is Immaculée, wearing a yellow and blue fitted dress that she made for herself. A single mother of five, she focuses on cutting the stiff cotton fabric she will later fashion into another outfit, as Assumpta guides her. Around them, the room whirrs with the sound of 20 manual sewing machines at work.
What little money the women in the group earn is from selling fruit by the side of the road, which they say is not nearly enough for them to support families, especially for those who do it single-handedly. But when these mothers graduate from the classes, they will be given a sewing machine and, with it, a way to earn an income.
Immaculée’s story is a familiar one for many of the women helped by the Mothers’ Union in Rwanda, which says a key part of its role is to empower women by giving them financial stability. Herself an orphan, Immaculée describes feeling suicidal when her husband left her and their five children. Joining the group has given her hope. “Now I have people I can rely on and don’t feel alone,” she says. “I feel I’m a human being now. I belong somewhere now.”
Moving between the tables, Assumpta advises the women. She beams when she speaks to me, before telling me she never used to smile. She says her life was one of anger against life and against God but, at the point of eviction, she was given a lifeline. At a meeting of the community to decide her future, one woman was so saddened by her story, she decided her Mothers’ Union’ group would do what they could to support the family. The woman said that Assumpta was someone “we need to bring near to God”.
Assumpta, who describes her feelings of hopelessness and despair at the time, says she didn’t care if she was closer to God or not. She just wanted food on the table and a roof over her children’s heads. She couldn’t believe she was loved by God or why would she and her children lack basic necessities?
Gradually, as the Mothers’ Union members offered her food and friendship, she started to accept what a persistently loving woman told her: “God lives in people and he’s sent me to help you.”
ACROSS Rwanda, the Mothers’ Union says that it has set up 40 groups which have in turn led to the creation of 224 small businesses. These groups — which include sewing, agriculture, business, and literacy skills — focus on enabling the women to save money to later invest in starting businesses.
Esther Trewinnard / Tearfund 2026Claudine Mukandayigenga, Immaculée Mukasekuru and Assumpta Mtabudateba, the course leader, with Revd Christine Niyitegeka of the Mothers’ Union
The Mothers’ Union in Rwanda says that its goal is to “build confident people and resilient communities”. For many women, resilience means being a mother against a backdrop of violence and abuse. The UN estimates that, in Rwanda, more than 40 per cent of women in relationships aged 15 to 49 have experienced violence within those relationships. If women are to move on and start new lives, they need financial independence. That is a key part of the Mothers’ Union’s work here — helping women develop skills and learn a trade that they can rely on.
A NEARBY retreat, part of Journey to Healing, a global programme led by the UK-based Christian development charity, Tearfund, is being co-facilitated in Rwanda by the Mothers’ Union. It aims to help female survivors to break the silence that often surrounds abuse and enable the women to support each other. The Revd Christine Niyitegeka and Canon Desiderata Niragira, who help run the retreat, have encouraged women to attend and share openly.
Ruth* tells the group how she felt that she had to escape her home with her young daughter after her husband had been especially abusive. Her first thought when finding herself alone and frightened for her safety was to turn to her local Mothers’ Union.
Francine*, the mother of a small child, was also guided to the retreat by the Mothers’ Union. She is living with HIV contracted from her abusive partner. She says she has come to find hope in the support of women who have been through similar abuse. She says that she now feels “valued and loved” and that speaking to other women who have suffered makes all the difference. “You know you are not alone,” she says.
The Rwanda Mothers’ Union provincial president, Chantal Mbanda, says that their work doesn’t stop with that initial support. They go on to offer “long-term empowerment, including education, legal awareness, and psychosocial care”.
Mrs Niyitegeka, who herself has five children and is a pastor at a nearby Anglican church near by, says: “When I’m working with the women, I don’t take it as work, I take it as ministry. When I see the positive results, it encourages me. I don’t feel tired because sometimes we are starting with women who are very distressed then, after the journey with them, you see a big change and people healed.”
*Names have been changed. Naomi Wellings travelled with Tearfund to Rwanda. Tearfund’s Journey to Healing programme, which partners with the Mothers’ Union in Rwanda, is featured on People Fixing the World: Ending violence against women on BBC Sounds.