She published an autobiography, Unbowed, in 2007. Political activist and environmentalist Wangari Maathai was trained to be a leader. Her entire life was thus characterized by learning, critical observations, engagement, interactions with people, and advocacy for change. Maathai had the unique opportunity of going to school when girls in her age group were typically not given the opportunity of doing so. While working for the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976, Maathai came up with . Interviews held on various dates in 2018 and 2019 with Prof. Wanjiku Kabira, Rev. In 1947, she returned to Ihithe, for lack of educational opportunities at the farm. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, Early States and State Formation in Africa, Historical Preservation and Cultural Heritage, Formal Education in Kenya and the United States, The Place of Wangari Maathai in Kenya, Africa, and the World, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.480, United Nations Conference on Human Environment, World Conference of the International Womens Year, United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development, Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace, World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace, United Nations Conference on Environmental Development (UNCED), Earth Summit, World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace, World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Wangari Maathai: Key Speeches and Articles, Women, Gender, and Sexuality in East Africa. Timothy Njoya, We the People: Thinking Heavenly Acting Kenyan (Nairobi, Kenya: WordAlive Publishers, 2017). As a national school, Loreto High School provided Maathai with the opportunity to interact with girls from other ethnic groups in Kenya. stream University of Nairobi Research Archive, Citation on Professor Wangari Muta Maathai on her Conferment of the Honorary Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) Dr. Wangar Muta Maathai. In 2004, Prof. Maathai became the first African woman to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace". Anyone can read what you share. A number of factors and circumstances seem to have contributed to the emergence, rise, and success of the GBM as a development actor. There, Maathai changed her first baptismal name and became a staunch member of the Legion of Mary, which encouraged the values of service and volunteering. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, a non-governmental organization, which encourages women to plant trees to combat deforestation and environmental degradation. Initially, the NCWK was an organization led by urban elite women and intended to give a voice to womens organizations. Alan Fowler, Striking a Balance: Guide to Enhancing the Effectiveness of Non-Governmental Organizations in International Development (London: Earthscan Publications, 1997). I am sure that this honour will now usher in a new beginning with new sensibilities to match. Childhood & Early Life. %PDF-1.5 Maathais parents were among the first people to interact with and gain some education from the missionaries (athomi or asomi). As a result of the movements activism, similar initiatives were begun in other African countries, including Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe. Maathai was born in polygamous family. It also gave her increased international exposure which provided some degree of political protection and a platform to highlight issues related to the environment. When they got married, she changed her name to Wangari Mathai, which she initially resisted, but did so on the insistence of her husband. He also discusses the place of indigenous languages in liberation from cultural enslavement in Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Nairobi, Kenya: Heinemann Educational, 1986). The prevailing cultural attitudes toward Western education and especially education for girls were hostile. Published March 28, 2023. Corrections? Wangari Muta Maathai dedicated her life to solving some of these key issues in Kenya and the world. When she won the Nobel Prize in 2004, the committee commended her holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights, and womens rights in particular. Her first book, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (1988; rev. The degree was conferred by the President of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, then Chancellor of University College, Nairobi. In these initial attempts, no distinct ideological orientation or program of action could distinguish her from other politicians in the country. Commission of Inquiry (Public Service Structure and Remuneration Commission), Kenya, Report of the Commission of Inquiry (Public Service Structure and Remuneration Commission) 19701971: D. N. Ndegwa (Nairobi, Kenya: [The Commission], 1971); and Michael Cowen and Kabiru Kinyanjui, Some Problems of Capital and Class in Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya: Institute for Development Studies, 1977). She began teaching in the Department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi after graduation, and in 1977 she became chair of the department. This was a political maneuver intended to weaken the chairperson role and a calculated strategy to undermine umbrella organizations by the withdrawal of members. Her resignation was accepted, but she was disqualified to stand as a candidate allegedly because she had not been registered as a voter. Thanks to a government-run exchange program, Maathai went to college in the United States, earning a masters degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh. She was also the first female scholar from East and Central Africa to take a doctorate (in biology), and the first female professor ever in her home country of Kenya. In Gikuyu, they were known as Athomi. Ndegwa, Walking in Kenyatta Struggles, 6264, refers to the divisions this category of people brought into in the society. She became Wangari Mathai. Unbowed: A Memoir . When I finally learned to read and write, I never stopped, because I could read, I could write and I could rub.9 After a period of attending primary school, it was decided she should join her cousin at St. Cecilias Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school operated by the Mathari Catholic Mission and Consolata Missionary Sisters. This formal education opened unparalleled opportunities in colonial and postcolonial Kenya. First, it is necessary to interrogate and appreciate the less than ideal circumstances under which the GBM rose and flourished. 51. In honor and admiration of the mother and father of Jesus, she took the forenames Mary Josephine, and became popularly known among her colleagues in high school and college as Mary Jo. The death of Wangari Muta Maathai on September 25, 2011, left a rich heritage that continues to inspire men and women, old and young, and indeed the entire world as it grapples with the challenges of sustainable development goals and climate change. In the following year, despite political and ethnic maneuvers, she was elected to the position of chairperson and re-elected repeatedly until 1987, when she retired from the position. Among them were the activists and the brokers of power. 27. When conflict engulfed central Kenya and some men went into the forest to fight and others detained, it was women who took care of their families: providing food, building houses, and in some cases educating children.52 When Maathai came home during the school holidays, this was the reality that confronted her. endobj In 1955, people were moved to concentration villages to pacify the region and to sever access to vital supply lines and community support that had supported the resistance fighters.18 It was in the context of the Mau Mau freedom struggle that Maathai received her education at St. Cecilia Intermediate Primary School and later Loreto High School, Limuru. Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, in recognition of her work with the Green Belt Movement, a group that organizes disadvantaged women in Africa to plant trees in order to preserve the environment and improve women' quality of life. Maathai, Unbowed, 5960; and Ndegwa, Walking in Kenyatta Struggles, 8791. These changes were advocated by the R. J. M. Swynnerton Plan of 1954. By mobilizing women to plant and care for trees, Maathai changed the thinking and practices of conserving the environment at a time when dominant global thinking on the environment and womens role in society was grappling for transformation. This left the NCWK in a precarious financial situation and effected the severing of relationships with many grassroots organizations. The genius of Maathai and other women leaders was to turn this elite organization into a vehicle for the empowerment of rural women. It was bolstered by the introduction of cash crops such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum, and the introduction of exotic dairy cows. 24. Mwangi, on the other hand, was working for a private corporation and was a business entrepreneur with political ambitions. The most important dates and events in the current school year can be found in our calendar. 3. Leaders of the Green Belt Movement established the Pan African Green Belt Network in 1986 in order to educate world leaders about conservation and environmental improvement. Lillian Mwaura interview, November 2018. Two years later, she shifted along with her parents to a farm near Rift Valley where her father had found work. When she was growing up, her father, a truck driver, made sure she was brought into family discussions and valued her opinions. Agricultural cooperatives were established in rural areas to ensure that quality agricultural commodities were produced and marketed. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Kenyan politician and environmental activist Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004 for her involvement in "sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights, and women's rights in particular." She became the first Black African woman to achieve such an honor. Later in life, as she became more engaged with various communities, her respect and appreciation of Gikuyu language, culture, and indigenous knowledge deepened and widened.17. Despite the complexities and diversions that characterized her career, Wangari Maathai did succeed in the promotion and execution of important ideas and projects whose time had come.41 Eventually in 2002, on her third attempt, she was elected as a member of the Kenyan parliament and as a member of the National Rainbow Coalition which emerged out of the ashes of the dying authoritarian rule of Moi and KANU. Early Life endstream The list of supporterswomen, men, and institutions in Kenya and elsewherewould be long. After completing her high school education in 1959, at Loreto School, Maathai embarked on another educational journey, this time to the United States. In the midst of her demanding career as an environmental and political activist, Maathai enjoyed motherhood and was very protective of her children. This source greatly helped my understanding of the ed. Primary Sources. Use these quotes in discussing Wangari Maathai's life and how her views and activities changed over the course of her lifetime. 48. Maathais exposure to other Kenyan ethnic communities broadened when she moved onto a settlers farm in the Nakuru area where her father was employed. 41. This was a joint program between the University of Giessen and University College, Nairobi. Most studies have focused on the societal importance of marriage and the negative effects of divorce on families. However, both were interested in Western education.5 They realized the value of education and encouraged their children to attend school. At the same time, Maathais life was greatly influenced by the splendor and simplicity of rural Gikuyu community life, values which subsequently engaged with Western education and religion, with ethnic and gender biases, and with state power and international development thinking. 26. Tabitha Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 190050 (Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishers, 2005), has analyzed the dynamics and contestations that shaped womanhood and marriage in colonial Kenya, including ethnic traditions, Christian missions, colonial state and its institutions, education, migration, travel, and women themselves. She had a job offer in the Department of Zoology at University College, Nairobi, only to discover the shocking news that the job had meanwhile been given to another person who was not even in the country. The contending social forces of the colonial period persisted in postcolonial Kenya, impinging on the concept of modern marriage and incipient African womanhood. In 2004, Maathai was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her contribution to protecting the environment and empowering women in Africa. The concept of Ubuntu has been widely discussed in South Africa, but here it refers to Desmond Tutus rendering of it in his book, God Is Not a Christian: Speaking Truth in Times of Crisis (London: Rider, 2013), 2124. Some of her most important speeches can be found on the GBM website, including: Bottlenecks to Development in Africa, Fourth UN World Womens Conference in Beijing, China, August 30, 1995; Speak Truth to Power, May 4, 2000; Noble Lecture during the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2004; Rise Up and Walk! All the girls in the school came from the same community, but were prohibited from speaking their language. Funding was crucial, giving Maathai a salaried job and access to resources to assist rural women to launch and maintain tree nurseries. Both families migrated from the Nyeri District to the Rift Valley province in search of employment and land to cultivate. Ecologist Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her years of work with women to reverse African deforestation. Kabiru Kinyanjui, ed., Non-Government Organizations (NGOs): Contributions to Development, Occasional Paper, no. Accordingly, she adopted new Christian names, to later abandon them in favor of her African names, a saga repeated upon marriage and divorce.13, In 1956, Maathai took another important step in her education journey by joining Loreto High School, Limuru. Updates? These events were critical to the formation of Maathai, who became an environmental champion, an engaged intellectual, a Nobel laureate, and an icon of grassroots activism. Her mother had a great deal of influence on her daughter as she grew up in the village. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Discussions held with Rev. Individual ownership of land and the introduction of cash crops drastically altered how people related to their environment.25 The indigenous trees were cut to prepare ground for planting coffee, tea, and wetlands; sacred groves and common grazing areas were subdivided, shared, and privatized.26 The consequences of these changes were observed by the young Maathai and responded to by the GBM in the 80s and 90s. The life of Wangari Muta Maathai (19402011) demonstrates the complex interaction of constructive historical circumstances with the development of an individual. Roland Hoksbergen and Lowell M. Ewert (Monrovia, CA: World Vision International, 2002). In addition to her conservation work, Maathai was also an advocate for human rights, AIDS prevention, and womens issues, and she frequently represented these concerns at meetings of the United Nations General Assembly. She benefited mainly from the tide of change which was sweeping the country, not because she had articulated her own political ideas.42. Events around this election occasioned unsolicited media publicity for Maathai. Her impact and influence had extended well beyond her constituency in Tetu, Kenya, and far beyond Africa. It also diffused opportunities for deepening an understanding of environment challenges in the country. Hannah Wangechi Kinoti, African Ethics: Gikuyu Traditional Morality (Nairobi, Kenya: Catholic University of Eastern Africa Press, 2013). Maathai shared her amazing life story with the world in the 2006 memoir Unbowed. Primary Sources. Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) was the founder of the Green Belt Movement and the Wangari Maathai Institute. 1. As an alternative, she chose to further her education, which led to a doctorate in the field of veterinary science from the University of Giessen, a first for an eastern African woman, for which she was widely recognized. The encounter with expatriate Germans opened a unique opportunity for Maathai. The Green Belt Movement, an organization she founded in 1977, had by the early 21st century planted some 30 million trees. By the time that the GBM had spread out to other African countries, acquiring a pan-African perspective and reputation, it had already taken deep roots in rural Kenya. Wangari Maathai Lesson Plan: Write and Deliver a Persuasive Speech Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8 In this lesson plan, adaptable for grades 3-12, students explore BrainPOP resources to learn about Wangari Maathai, a global leader for women's rights and conservation. The Third Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture, Johannesburg, South Africa, July 19, 2005; Sustained Development, Democracy, and Peace in Africa, Gwangju, South Korea, June 16, 2006; and the Keynote Address at the Second World Congress of Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya, August 24, 2009. Your recognition as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate has without doubt now confirmed your extraordinary identity in Tetu, Nyeri, Kenya, East Africa, Africa and the World.60. Africentrism. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there nobody else will do it. << /Filter /FlateDecode /S 128 /Length 115 >> While her father was formally educated, her mother was not. When Maathai decided to vie for an elected position, she underestimated the determination of the state to frustrate and contain her ambitions. Wangari Maathai Lesson Plan: Individual's Contributions Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8 *Click to open and customize your own copy of the Wangari Maathai Lesson Plan . Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, African History. However, they were still straddling the line between their traditional culture and Western values.27 Their wedding was solemnized according to Gikuyu traditions and Western Christian trappings. She also had close relationships with other African regional institutionsfor instance, the African Development Bank (AfDB). Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Forest cover was also decimated as large-scale farms were subdivided and select forest reserves were hived off for settlement purposes. 25 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /L 82815 /H [ 810 195 ] /O 26 /E 63939 /N 11 /T 82414 >> 54. Daniel Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 19632012 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 249251; and Karuti Kanyinga and Duncan Okello, eds., Tensions and Reversals in Democratic Transitions: The Kenya 2007 General Elections (Nairobi, Kenya: Society for International Development and Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, 2010), 169. endobj The socioeconomic impact of policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on the environment and poverty in Africa should be noted at a time when the thinking within UN circles was questioning the prevailing development orthodoxy. The relevant conferences included: Environment and Development (Stockholm, Sweden, 1972), Hunger and World Food Problems (Rome, Italy, 1974), Population Growth and Development (Cairo, Egypt, 1974), Human Settlements (Vancouver, Canada, 1976), Science and Technology for Development (Vienna, Austria, 1979), and Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979). Maathais knowledge of the German language (which was a minor subject during study for her first degree) became useful as it enabled her to interact with the German lecturers who were assisting with the establishment of a school of veterinary medicine. In the forests of Aberdares and Mount Kenya, guerilla warfare was intense. 36. Historian G. Muriuki refers to this early mixing of ethnic groups in The History of the Kikuyu, 15001900 (Nairobi, Kenya: Oxford University Press, 1974). 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