Sandra was born in June 1994 in the Hauts Plateaux mountains in South Kivu, a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She is a member of the Banyamulenge tribe and one of six children. Because the Banyamulenge did not share surnames, Sandra’s parents named her after the Rwandan prime minister, Agathe Uwiringiyimana, an influential woman in Rwandan history—which foreshadows the influential woman Sandra would become, through her dedication to activism and providing the Banyamulenge with a voice.

At a young age, Sandra already lived through unspeakable tragedy and loss, in addition to being teased in school for being an “outsider” in her own home country: This was because the situation was more precarious for Sandra’s people, the Banyamulenge, who lived in the Congo but “spoke a language of their native Rwanda” (18). In addition to sounding different, the Banyamulenge looked different; aware of this, they isolated themselves. When Sandra was 10 years old, she and her family fled from their home in Uvira and went to a refugee camp in Burundi, where the Banyamulenge were under siege by Congolese soldiers. Sandra’s younger sister was murdered, and her mother was shot but survived.