Apart from her conservation efforts, Maathai was an outspoken campaigner for human rights, AIDS prevention, and women's problems, regularly addressing these themes during United Nations General Assembly sessions. She was elected to the Kenyan National Assembly with 98 percent of the vote in 2002 and named assistant minister of environment, natural resources, and wildlife in 2003. When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, the committee praised her for her âholistic approach to sustainable development, which incorporates democracy, human rights, and women's rights in particular.â Her first book, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and Experience (1988; revised edition 2003), chronicled the organization's history. Unbowed, her autobiography, was released in 2007. Another book, The African Challenge (2009), attacked Africa's leadership as ineffective and challenged Africans to resolve their own issues without Western support. Maathai contributed often to foreign newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian.
Meanwhile, tributes poured in on Facebook and Twitter. Maathai was a global hot topic on the microblogging website, as people recalled how she had impacted their lives. The New Economics Foundation's Ann Pettifor tweeted: "Wangari was the heroine of my story. Jubilee 2000's African leader, he was instrumental in resolving Kenya's debt."
(Related Story: A Kenyan's Struggle to Win the Nobel Peace Prize)
Professor Maathai and GBM workers and colleagues were routinely attacked, detained, harassed, and publically maligned by the Moi dictatorship as a result of these and other advocacy actions. Professor Maathaiâs bravery and perseverance helped her establish herself as one of the most well-known and respected women in Kenya. Internationally, she was also recognized for her fearless stance for human and environmental rights.
She left her home Kenya in the 1960s to seek further education in the United States. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in the United States before moving to Germany to pursue a PhD in a collaborative program with the University of Nairobi. She was the first East African woman to get a PhD in 1971 and went on to become Kenya's first female professor.
Wangari Maathai Childhood
When Wangari Maathai arrived in the United Kingdom in 1988 as a virtually unknown African social activist, all we knew about her was that she was a middle-aged scientist who had been beaten by the Kenyan government for opposing the development of a Nairobi park and was working with a group of women planting trees. She delivered a brief address to a few human rights and environmental organizations and, within a half-hour, likely shifted the agenda for a generation of activists who had before dismissed poverty in Africa as irrelevant to the global discussion.
Wangari left home at the age of eleven to attend an Italian nun-run residential middle school. She graduated from high school at a period when very few African women were taught to read. Senator John F. Kennedy, then a senator, established a program in September 1960 to encourage talented African students to study in the United States. Only a few hundred young people on the whole continent obtained such an invitation. Among them was Wangari Maathai. She came in America to realize, to her horror, that even in a nation as prosperous and evocative of liberty, human rights were not distributed fairly. She lived through the civil rights movement's zenith at the same time her own nation achieved independence from British authority.
Apart from her conservation efforts, Maathai was an outspoken campaigner for human rights, AIDS prevention, and women's problems, regularly addressing these themes during United Nations General Assembly sessions. She was elected to the Kenyan National Assembly with 98 percent of the vote in 2002 and named assistant minister of environment, natural resources, and wildlife in 2003. When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, the committee praised her for her âholistic approach to sustainable development, which incorporates democracy, human rights, and women's rights in particular.â Her first book, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and Experience (1988; revised edition 2003), chronicled the organization's history. Unbowed, her autobiography, was released in 2007. Another book, The African Challenge (2009), attacked Africa's leadership as ineffective and challenged Africans to resolve their own issues without Western support. Maathai contributed often to foreign newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian.
Wangari Maathai was elected to Parliament by a landslide in December 2002 and now serves as the Assistant Secretary for Environment, Wildlife, and Natural Resources in the democratically elected Kibaki cabinet. Despite the fact that she is now protected by the exact troops that arrested her, her voice for the environment remains strong and resolute. In October 2004, she was given the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, capping a career of outstanding accomplishments.
Wangari Maathai Children'S Book
Maathai remained a prominent critic of Kenya's government until Moi's political party lost power in 2002. After many unsuccessful efforts, she was eventually elected to the country's parliament the following year. Maathai was named assistant minister for the environment, natural resources, and wildlife shortly afterwards. In 2004, she was bestowed with an extraordinary award. According to the Nobel Foundation's website, Maathai received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace." Maathai said in her Nobel acceptance speech that her selection "asked the world to widen its definition of peace: There can be no peace without fair development, and no development without sustainable environmental management in a democratic and peaceful space." In her speech, she also pleaded for the release of fellow campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi.
One tree at a time, a Kenyan lady battles to rescue her homeland. This is the narrative of Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan naturalist who was passionate about her homeland. Wangari travels around Kenya after returning from school in the United States, supporting women's rights and planting trees to help protect the country. This title is included in the Read for Success series. Click here to learn more about Read for Success.
Wangari Maathai started her efforts not just to combat soil erosion, but also to assist Kenya's growing population in becoming self-sufficient in wood fuel consumption and establishing an income-generating activity for rural areas. Kenya presently has over 5,000 grassroots nurseries and over 20 million trees have been planted. Meanwhile, the Green Belt Movement offers seminars to individuals interested in duplicating their technique, and a global branch has been established to promote the movement outside Africa. Wangari Maathai (d. 2011) founded Kenya's Green Belt Movement, a grass-roots tree-planting initiative led by women dedicated to mitigating the terrible social and environmental repercussions of deforestation and desertification.
Maathai enrolled at St. Cecilia's Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school located on the Mathari Catholic Mission in Nyeri, at the age of 11.
[10] Maathai spent four years at St. Cecilia's. She became proficient in English and converted to Catholicism during this period. She was a member of the Legion of Mary, whose members sought to "serve God by assisting one another." [11] She was protected at St. Cecilia's from the continuing Mau Mau insurgency, which caused her mother to relocate from their land to an emergency settlement in Ihithe. [12] When she graduated in 1956, she was ranked best in her class and was admitted to Kenya's sole Catholic girls' high school, Loreto High School in Limuru. [13] As the end of East African colonialism drew near, Kenyan leaders such as Tom Mboya proposed means for bright children to get access to school in Western countries. John F. Kennedy agreed to sponsor such a program via the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, launching what became known as the Kennedy Airlift or Airlift Africa. Maathai was chosen in September 1960 as one of around 300 Kenyans to study in the United States. [14]
Wangari Maathai'S Children'S Names
The Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies (WMI) was created at the University of Nairobi to commemorate, acknowledge, celebrate, progress, and immortalize Professor Wangari Maathai's principles and efforts. Professor Doulaye Konat, Lily Mafela, Ph.D., and Professor Christopher Ogbogbo gave scientific input for this publication. African Roots is made possible by the generosity of the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
Maathai remained a prominent critic of Kenya's government until Moi's political party lost power in 2002. After many unsuccessful efforts, she was eventually elected to the country's parliament the following year. Maathai was named assistant minister for the environment, natural resources, and wildlife shortly afterwards. In 2004, she was bestowed with an extraordinary award. According to the Nobel Foundation's website, Maathai received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace." Maathai said in her Nobel acceptance speech that her selection "asked the world to widen its definition of peace: There can be no peace without fair development, and no development without sustainable environmental management in a democratic and peaceful space." In her speech, she also pleaded for the release of fellow campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi.
The purpose of TreeSisters is to reforest the tropics and encourage women to connect with their natural wisdom via a worldwide sisterhood of women who express their abilities individually and collectively. Establishing a 'Restorer Species' TreeSisters' work incorporates and celebrates Wangari Maathai's principles. You may also like to pay a visit to the organization that continues her work today: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai
However, Wanjira feels she does not have to go this route to convey her argument. âWe are a progressive nation,â she said. Apart from the Green Belt Movement and the Wangari Maathai Foundation, Wanjira founded Daima Greenspaces, a coalition of like-minded groups dedicated to the preservation of green spaces across Kenya.
