Ringing the hills: how a tea farmer and her daughters adapted to the shifting slopes

A tea farmer walks the edge of her terraced hillside in Karongi, Rwanda. She looks up at dark clouds forming over the ridges: “Before, the rain came without warning. Now, the message comes before the clouds.” The farmer’s phone vibrated an hour earlier: a community alert warning of heavy rainfall expected within 48 hours. These messages now allow her and her daughters to reinforce terrace edges, clear water channels, and store dried leaves before the downpour begins. For families like hers, this shift is reshaping life in Rwanda’s fragile hills.

When the hills began to move

In Karongi, one of Rwanda’s most landslide-prone regions, rain can turn from blessing to hazard in minutes. In 2023, heavy storms triggered landslides that swept through villages, burying homes and tea gardens. Crops were lost, families were displaced. That uncertainty began to change when the Rwandan Red Cross, under Water at the Heart of Climate Action (WHCA), partnered with local authorities to pilot community-driven early warning systems.

The hidden barrier: who gets the message?

Every week, communities in Karongi receive rainfall and landslide risk updates, translated into the local language and shared through SMS messages, women’s cooperatives, local radio, and market loudspeakers. The system ensures that every person can receive and act on timely climate alerts. When an alert arrives, communities take immediate action to protect their homes and farmlands. “Before, people waited for the rain to start. Now they move before it does”, explains a Rwandan Red Cross volunteer.

Early warning only works if everyone can receive it. But in Karongi, a gender gap in technology access once kept many in the dark. Cultural norms discouraged many women from owning phones. “Men received the alerts, but they were often away when the rain started,” says a member of the local women’s cooperative. “The women working the fields were left guessing.” To change this, the Rwandan Red Cross and partners gave women’s cooperatives priority access to alerts, trained them to interpret forecasts, and them equipped with shared phones. The same women who once relied on second-hand news now lead the community’s response, spreading the word in coordination with local officials. “It is a warning carried by women’s voices.”, one volunteer says.

In a region where women were once excluded from decision-making, they are now key actors in climate resilience. The farmer’s daughters are part of a youth group that helps interpret weather messages for neighbours without literacy. They share updates on WhatsApp and encourage other young people to join environmental activities. “My daughters speak both languages – the one of the phones and the one of the hills”, the farmer laughs.

Preparation becomes protection

The shift to anticipation is already showing tangible results. During the last rainy season, fewer homes were damaged, and no lives were lost. Farmers saved crops that would have otherwise be washed away. And the tea farmer and her daughters changed their planting patterns – choosing crops that thrive in wetter soils, building raised seedling beds to avoid rot, and installing small rainwater tanks to reduce erosion. Neighbours are adopting similar practices, and there is hope that the fields will hold steady even during heavy storms.

Bridging policy, science, and community trust

Behind the scenes, the collaboration between the Ministry in Charge of Emergency Management (MINEMA), Meteo Rwanda, the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWRB), and the Rwandan Red Cross is critical. MINEMA oversees national disaster risk management, coordinating preparedness and response work at all levels: “We capacitate people to assess who’s at risk, where the risk is, and what we can do. ” says Fred Tumwebaze, technical advisor at MINEMA.

Scientists and volunteers meet regularly to refine the early warning system, improving the accessibility of warning messages and adapting thresholds to local conditions. Meteo Rwanda’s forecasts are broken down into impact-based alerts that explain not only how the weather will be, but what it might do, and which actions communities should take to protect themselves. A RWRB engineer explains: “Forecasts mean nothing if people can’t act on them. Now, when we say, ‘rainfall above 80 millimetres,’ communities know exactly what that means for them.”

A safer future in the making

The impact of Karongi’s early warning system is already visible. When heavy rains sweep across the district, alerts buzz through the valleys. Doors open, people move, drains clear, and the hillside holds. “We don’t fear the rain anymore,” the farmer says. “We already know what to do.”