WANGARI MAATHAI (1940-2011)
Wangari Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya (Africa) in 1940. She was a social, environmental, and political activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Her work was often considered to be subversive and unwelcome, stepping far outside traditional gender roles.
Maathai was educated in Kenya, Germany, and the United States (even attended the University of Pittsburgh!!). She received her PhD in veterinary anatomy from the University of Nairobi, becoming the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate.
While working with the National Council of Women of Kenya, she developed the idea that village women could improve the environment and reduce poverty by planting trees in their villages. Her aim was to combat soil erosion while also helping villages to become self-sustaining.
Through the Green Belt Movement, Maathai inspired Kenyan women were able to plant over 30 million trees and 11 billion trees worldwide through her efforts at the United Nations.
In the late 1980s, Maathai led a courageous fight against the development of Uhuru park, a large public space in Nairobi. While her efforts succeeded in getting the project canceled, Maathai was vilified in the press and forced to vacate her office space. She was also labeled a “subversive” and became a target of then president Daniel Arap Moi.
Maathai’s willingness to speak out on critical social matters made her a target of the police, where they broke into her home, placed her under arrest, clubbed her into unconsciousness, and otherwise tried to discourage her from engaging in political activity.
Despite everything, Maathai continued to try to reform the political process so that government addressed the concerns of ordinary Kenyans. She also spoke in front of the United Nations on several occasions, was a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for her environmental and human rights work, and was named a UN Messenger of Peace in 2009.
Wangari Maathai died in 2011 at the age of 71 from ovarian cancer.
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