When you enter Théogène Nsengiyumva and Agnès Nyirahabimana’s home in Nyamigisha village, Mareba sector in Bugesera District, you quickly realise that, despite its rural setting, it is a decent and happy home.

It is a far cry from what it was in 2019 before the 49-year-old joined the ‘MenEngage’ programme by Women for Women Rwanda, which sought to dismantle negative gender norms that held women back, especially in rural parts of the country.

Nsengiyumva, a father of seven, is a model farmer who rears cows, pigs, goats, and poultry. However, a few years ago, he was known as the drunkard of the village, regularly tormenting his wife and children.

"When Women for Women came to the sector looking for couples to join the ‘MenEngage’ initiative, I told my wife that we should go and register,” Nsengiyumva said.

They were looking for couples to train, and Nsengiyumva told his wife Nyirahabimana to enrol in the programme, which sought to create a GBV-free society and promote gender-equitable attitudes and behaviours, as well as socio-economic development.

Before joining the 12-month programme in 2019, Nsengiyumva and Nyirahabimana’s household was characterised by conflicts that affected their socio-economic well-being.

"After joining the training, I realised there were things I used to do that I thought were ‘manly’, but it turned out these were negative practices that had an effect on my spouse. I noticed that I was perpetuating forms of GBV, including causing her emotional pain, denying her rights, and other forms of abuse,” Nsengiyumva says.

During the training, he also realized that he was propagating other forms of GBV, some unknowingly, including using all family resources for his own benefit and isolating his wife.

"Sometimes I would go out and return home drunk at night to abuse her or even physically assault her. I would also engage in acts of infidelity, all of which led to emotional abuse,” the 49-year-old farmer says.

Nsengiyumva says he took time to meditate and told his wife Nyirahabimana that he was going to drop these habits and become a changed man.

"I told her I was going to give a testimony before others and even go to church to repent for my sins,” says Nsengiyumva, who is now a role model in his community.

Nsengiyumva also says that his negative masculinity had not only affected his wife but also his children and the entire household, which was economically vulnerable due to his actions.

Before that, he had thrived on his negative masculinity, not engaging in any form of economic activity and taking even the little his wife earned to finance his drinking habit and other women.

"We were not in any savings scheme or cooperative. I was just living aimlessly, tormenting my wife. If I had gotten this training earlier, my household would have been different,” Nsengiyumva says.

At the time, he was living in a substandard house which he seemed content with, and he was despised in the community due to his conduct. Today, he has upgraded his abode.

Never too late to change

Though he had lost many years engaging in practices that had affected his family, Nsengiyumva luckily joined the Women for Women Rwanda programme and realised that it is never too late to make a change in one’s life.

"I had lost many years to that kind of behaviour, but I was able to change. Today, my household is thriving socially and economically; I am respected in society, and my life has changed for the better,” says Nsengiyumva, who at the time did not have anything tangible to his name.

It was not an easy journey, for when change set in, people began to talk. When he changed his ways, word began to spread that Nsengiyumva had been bewitched by his wife.

It is a common assumption in Rwandan and other African traditional settings, that when a man starts changing and becoming more responsible, it is because the wife has done something unusual to him, such as witchcraft.

Nsengiyumva ignored the noise and focused on changing his ways and becoming more involved in the socioeconomic development of his family.

"Our lives changed tremendously. Today, I am a model farmer and people come to me for advice. We improved our household by working together to get out of poverty. Our household was categorised among the most poor and vulnerable,” he says.

Today, his household is an example of the most successful, and Nsengiyumva is determined to influence other men to change.

After joining the WfW-Rwanda programme, Nsengiyumva became more supportive and engaged in a healthy relationship with his wife, which helped them to increase their household income and become influential in the community.

Today, he is an agricultural mobiliser and a role model in his community. They started saving with just Rwf300 in their savings group, but today he contributes Rwf10, 000 monthly, on top of his other activities.

Nyirahabimana's observation

Nsengiyumva and Nyirahabimana got married in 1997 when she was just 17. They have seven children together, however, one died.

Nyirahabimana knows all too well the suffering she endured before they joined the WfW Rwanda programme. She was the most relieved when Nsengiyumva began to change.

"I was thin and hungry. He was the kind of man you would never ask for anything. He was a drunkard; any income we got, he would divert to drinking and women.

"Our children suffered the most; in fact, some were malnourished. I would try to work hard, tilling people’s gardens to get some money to feed our children, but he would take it to buy alcohol and hire prostitutes,” Nyirahabimana recalls.

Whatever they planted in their backyard, Nyirahabimana was not allowed to touch, even to cook for the hungry children. Nsengiyumva would sell off the produce to finance his drinking and philandering habits.

Even when he told her about the Women for Women programme, Nyirahabimana did not believe him at first, as she thought he was just playing his usual games.

"I didn't think I was the woman he would want to go anywhere with. He couldn’t even give me a ride on his bicycle, so I insisted on accompanying him. I just said, ‘Let me escort him,’” she says.

"It was a Monday when we arrived at the sector and were registered for the training. We began the course and men and women were given different days for training,” Nyirahabimana says.

Nyirahabimana, who had been contemplating abandoning the home, started seeing changes a few days into the training.

She recalls, "He started bringing money home and buying basic needs. He started calling me ‘Madam’, something I had never thought of. I had reached a point of desperation, wondering what had befallen me.”

Before she knew it, Nsengiyumva had confessed his sins, repented before other trainees, and promised to change. He also vowed never to subject her to any form of gender-based violence.

"There was a time he beat me up, abandoned the home, and I went back to my parents,” Nyirahabimana says.

Slowly but surely, life started changing. She started gaining weight and feeling better inside. Soon, their firstborn reached marriageable age and they gave her away in a joyous, colourful ceremony, with Nsengiyumva taking charge proudly as a father.

They started agriculture and livestock farming; everything was falling into place quickly. They started a farm for cows, goats, pigs, and chickens, as well as crop farming.

Today, even when he drinks his beer, it is to celebrate their economic gains and a way of celebrating and being happy with his family. His children are happier with a present father who takes care of them fully.

Before enjoying his drink, he makes sure that everything is taken care of and everyone at home is happy, thanks to the ‘MenEngage’ initiative by Women for Women Rwanda.

The five-year research-based project, implemented by WfW Rwanda in collaboration with ICRW under Cartier Philanthropy since March 2019, is aimed at encouraging men to drop negative gender norms while simultaneously socioeconomically empowering households.

The gender norms include those that perpetuate GBV and deprive women of their rights.

According to Ephrem Mudenge, the ‘MenEngage’ programme coordinator at WfW International, the initiative which targeted men and women in Rwanda has since reported more gender-equitable attitudes and behaviours from the participants.

At least 170 couples in Mareba sector, Bugesera district, have been trained on positive masculinity and women’s rights.

"We decided to work with men because we realised so many women lacked opportunities to participate in decision-making, to have bodily autonomy, to determine the course of their lives, or even to increase economic productivity and attain assets.

"This was mainly due to harmful social norms and patriarchal attitudes, which place both men and women into rigid gender roles that are harmful to both genders,” Mudenge says.

The project aimed to eliminate discriminatory practices and power struggles that lead to gender-based violence. Transformative change required the participation of both men and women, but most importantly, men who perpetuated those practices.

Mudenge says that since the beginning of the programme, there have been positive changes in society, with men understanding women’s rights and their role in the family’s socioeconomic well-being. Today, men are more supportive and are engaged in domestic chores as well as parenting.