During the period when Maathai was acquiring her education in Kenya and the United States (19521966), the respective colonial and independent governments were undertaking far-reaching agricultural reforms in central Kenya. << /Type /XRef /Length 71 /Filter /FlateDecode /DecodeParms << /Columns 4 /Predictor 12 >> /W [ 1 2 1 ] /Index [ 22 32 ] /Info 37 0 R /Root 24 0 R /Size 54 /Prev 82415 /ID [<27d5614c796589e23c265b2454e3ebce><27d5614c796589e23c265b2454e3ebce>] >> 50. She appealed to environmental and peace constituencies in the global development establishment and was heartily recognized. Hence the dynamics of local and international forces coalesced in the work of the GBM. Maathai played an active part in the struggle for democracy in Kenya, and belonged to the opposition . By then she had acquired world fame which transcended her position as a member of parliament and as an assistant minister of the environment and natural resourcesa position she was appointed to in January 2003. The women formed an important constituency of this work which politicians could not ignore. 48. Funding was crucial, giving Maathai a salaried job and access to resources to assist rural women to launch and maintain tree nurseries. The accompanying population explosion also meant more people needed to be fed, educated, and their various needs provided for. Born in the midst of a world war and growing up among the conflicts and ambiguities of colonial domination, thereafter she cultivated, mobilized, and networked for a world of democratic and peaceful governance and sustainable development. 36. 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. In 1977, Maathai founded a grassroots organization, the Green Belt Movement, focused on reforestation to promote sustainability and establish financial income for women in the region. This was a joint program between the University of Giessen and University College, Nairobi. On this farm she interacted with ordinary people from other ethnic communities as well as foreigners. Unbowed: A Memoir . Primary Sources Overview . To see her customs denigrated at this stage of her personal development was devastating.12 Despite that negative experience, Maathai remained proud of her culture and valued indigenous knowledge and related stories. The drift toward authoritarianism had emerged in the late 60s and 70s under Kenyas first President, Jomo Kenyatta, and was consolidated in the 80s with the ascendancy of the Moi regime.47 One party rule was legalized, and dissent was punished by arbitrary arrests, torture, and detention without trial.48 Maathai took up the leadership of the NCWK and subsequently as a coordinator of the GBM as state control and surveillance was intensified. Two years into their marriage, she attained her PhD, which accelerated her career in academia. Wangari Maathai, Noble Lecture, during the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2004; Maathai, Unbowed; and Maathai, Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World (New York: Doubleday, 2010). At that time, she was working as an assistant lecturer at the University College, Nairobi. She straddled academic activities and civic engagement as a member of the NCWK and as a board member of the Environment Liaison Centre.45 As a highly educated woman, she gained visibility and much appreciation. 44. 41. Maathai was born in polygamous family. 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. The impact of these policies was felt mostly in the 60s and 70s as landless poor were settled, necessitating the cutting of trees on small-scale farms and reducing forest cover in districts like Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Nyandarua, Laikipia, and Kirinyaga. << /Filter /FlateDecode /S 128 /Length 115 >> But after returning to Kenya, she found that her career opportunities were limited. endobj The interplay of these dynamics served in critical ways to shape the life work of Prof. Wangari Maathai which was recognized and awarded in 2004 with the Nobel Peace Prize. 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". Her resignation was accepted, but she was disqualified to stand as a candidate allegedly because she had not been registered as a voter. 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. Fresh Air Weekend Fresh Air Weekend: NPR host Mary Louise Kelly; Josh Groban. stream 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. Forest cover was also decimated as large-scale farms were subdivided and select forest reserves were hived off for settlement purposes. 16. It focused on the value of tree-planting programs, as well as dealing with environmental deterioration in rural areas resulting from the intensified cultivation of cash crops and population growth. 50, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, 1987; and Njuguna, Ngethe and Karuti, Kanyinga, The Politics of Development Space: The State and NGOs in the Delivery of Basic Services in Kenya, Working Paper, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, 1992. Such strengths also helped to secure funding for the GBM and to ensure, in some measure, Maathais personal security. These agrarian reforms were adopted and intensified by the postcolonial government, leading to the increased degradation of rural areas. As a result of the movements activism, similar initiatives were begun in other African countries, including Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe. Wangari Maathai. The separation between the NCWK and the GBM that occurred in 1987 as a result of political pressure from the Moi regime, proved another milestone in the development of the identity and stature of Maathai as an environmental activist. 34. Updates? However, both were interested in Western education.5 They realized the value of education and encouraged their children to attend school. When she was growing up, her father, a truck driver, made sure she was brought into family discussions and valued her opinions. The subsequent handling of the divorce proceedings by the judiciary and the press seem to point out the quandary of how marriages of educated women were then perceived. But as land consolidation and registration went on in central Kenya, it was men who were registered as owners, although it was women who cultivated the land. Two years later, she shifted along with her parents to a farm near Rift Valley where her father had found work. The intention was to pacify central Kenya and create a favorable apolitical climate for consolidating the interests of settlers and the colonial administration. Women were in control and were making the vital decisions at home, in the village, and at 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. Working for the GBM widened her horizons and provided a canvas upon which Maathai painted her broad vision for sustainable development, peace, democracy, gender equality, and grassroots empowerment in Kenya and Africa. Maathai was shaped by her rural environmentin which she lived on her mothers farmas well as her missionary education and later, by her education in the United States and Germany. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. I'm very conscious of the fact that you can't do it alone. In the 50s, for purposes of controlling insurgency in central Kenya, cash crops such as coffee and tea, and the keeping of dairy animals were introduced. She summarized her experiences at Mount St. Scholastica College in the following manner: My four years at the Mount, and experiences I had both on and off campus, nurtured in me a willingness to listen and learn, to think critically and analytically, and to ask questions. Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist who dedicated her life to promoting sustainable development, democracy, and human rights. Wangari Maathai held her Nobel Lecture December 10, 2004, in the Oslo City Hall, Norway. Wangari Maathai went to college in the United States, earning degrees from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964) and the University of Pittsburgh (1966). They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 24 0 obj She had a bucolic childhood spent in the rural Kenyan countryside and was sent to St. Cecilia Intermediary, a mission school, for her primary education. Even though some of the teaching at school undermined her cultural identity, the warmth and encouragement from the Catholic nuns and the stimulus of learning and appreciating the sciences had a lasting impact. 22 0 obj Agricultural cooperatives were established in rural areas to ensure that quality agricultural commodities were produced and marketed. Member organizations were usually part of a countrywide network that resonated with concerns of grassroots women. The Swynnerton Plan and subsequent government policies informed land settlement schemes which were funded by the British government to buy out white settler farmers, and to appease released Mau Mau detainees and landless people displaced as result of land consolidation in native reserves. These land reforms changed the social, economic, political, and ecological landscape of central Kenya, and affected village life and the environment where Maathai grew up. Among them were the activists and the brokers of power. 2. . Each of these fields of her engagement merit detailed analysis as was done with the GBM. Maathai was of Kikuyu ethnicity. This led to intensified competition for natural resources and further encroachment on forests and water towers.43. She sat for the Kenya Primary Examination in 1951 and scored Grade One. %PDF-1.5 She had become a global figure. Maathai was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College; B.S. Her books and speeches were often enriched by illustrations from her cultural background despite the onslaught it had undergone during the exposure to missionary education and religion. The most important dates and events in the current school year can be found in our calendar. 61. In the last three decades it has become the cosmopolitan and partially urbanized County of Nyeri. [i] She was born in Nyeri, part of the rural region of Kenya on the 1st of April 1940. Wangari's Trees of Peace is based on the true story of Wangari Maathai, an environmentalist in Kenya and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. The list of supporterswomen, men, and institutions in Kenya and elsewherewould be long. She was presented by Professor Ole Danbolt Mjs, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Hence Maathai was shaped mainly by Gikuyu culture, colonial and postcolonial history, contacts with Catholic clergy, nuns, and grassroots women. This was a rare occurrence in her male-dominated society. 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. This left the NCWK in a precarious financial situation and effected the severing of relationships with many grassroots organizations. Maathai is still remembered for her determined and persistent efforts to safeguard Uhuru Park and the Karura Forest for future generations, for her solidarity with mothers of political detainees, as well as her relentless efforts for peace and to end election-related violence in the Rift Valley region and in the country since 1992 when multiparty politics were allowed. Justin Chang reviews Showing Up.Groban first auditioned to . Further information about these conferences can be found in the Links to Digital Materials section. 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. When she tried to withdraw her resignation letter from the University of Nairobi, she was bluntly told that the position had been taken by another person! Wangari Maathai. Addressing enormously complex challenges of deforestation and global climate change, the movement partnered with poor rural women who were encouraged, and paid a small stipend, to plant millions of trees to slow . Maathai, Unbowed, 5960; and Ndegwa, Walking in Kenyatta Struggles, 8791. Maendeleo ya Wanawake was such a grassroots organization established during the colonial period and after independence had developed a countrywide network of grassroots affiliates.30. Political activist and environmentalist Wangari Maathai was trained to be a leader. endobj 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. 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. The GBM is thus credited with developing a culture of planting trees during important family, community, and national events. As more funds were secured and more international attention gained, the GBM was assured of survival, both financially and politically. Another volume, The Challenge for Africa (2009), criticized Africas leadership as ineffectual and urged Africans to try to solve their problems without Western assistance. 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). Maathai was born in a small rural village known as Ihithe in the Tetu division in what was then the Nyeri District. An interview with Prof. Cyrus Mutiso indicated that Prof. Mathaai built the GBM on existing self-improvement womens groups such as the Nyakinyua Mabati womens groups located in the Nyeri and Muranga Counties. These forms of marginalization of women were common in Kenya. Their divorce was highly publicized. As elites, they were keen to build careers, and acquire wealth and status in the emerging society. Later Years and Death. In her writings, Maathai refers to Maasai influence on her mothers side.3. To begin with, Maathai had to contest for a position in the NCWK leadership. Maathai shared her amazing life story with the world in the 2006 memoir Unbowed. Wangari's Words to Live By . These factors, together with the limited number of schools in colonial Kenya, meant that the young Maathai was very fortunate. Wangari Maathai, in full Wangari Muta Maathai, (born April 1, 1940, Nyeri, Kenyadied September 25, 2011, Nairobi), Kenyan politician and environmental activist who was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize for Peace, becoming the first Black African woman to win a Nobel Prize. Nobel Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai . This was a political maneuver intended to weaken the chairperson role and a calculated strategy to undermine umbrella organizations by the withdrawal of members. She died on September 25, 2011, at the age . The GBM established strong footholds in the districts where land consolidation and settlements had taken place and where modern farming methods and marketing were adopted. Most people think of Ms. Maathai as an environmentalist, planting trees. Dr. Wangar Muta Maathai was a Kenyan social, environmental and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Her work was often considered both unwelcome and subversive in her own country, where her outspokenness constituted stepping far outside traditional gender roles. These groups played critical roles in shaping the values and politics that she espoused for social justice, sustainable development, and climate change. The survival of the GBM under these circumstances may be attributed to the international stature that Maathai had acquired as an environmental warrior, and the existence of supporter networks and admirers scattered all over the world. stream Dr. Wangar Muta Maathai. This source greatly helped my understanding of the Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The couple had similar family backgrounds. endobj 3. This may have shaped her strong ecumenical stance evident in later years. The daughter of a peasant farmer and the third . 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. In 1966, Maathai returned to Kenya confident and with high hopes for making a contribution to the newly independent country. 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. After completing her high school education in 1959, at Loreto School, Maathai embarked on another educational journey, this time to the United States. Maathai's atypical and yet symbolic biography draws on two primary texts: Wangari Maathai's (2006), Unbowed: A Memoir . A number of factors and circumstances seem to have contributed to the emergence, rise, and success of the GBM as a development actor. The first indigenous woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, Professor Maathai started school in 1948 at Ihithe Primary School. A church allied to President Moi withdrew from the NCCK in similar circumstances.34 Thereafter Maendeleo ya Wanawake was integrated within the ruling party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), until the overwhelming defeat of the party in the general elections of 2002.35, Secondly, in 1982 for the first time, Maathai ventured into electoral politics. It was an area populated by the Gikuyu people who lived in scattered homesteads around which they cultivated food crops and kept livestock.1 British settlers engaged in large-scale farming within the district, while colonial administrators entrenched colonial rule. (Nairobi, Kenya: Leadership Institute, 2011); and Wangari Maathai, Unbowed: One Womans Story (London: Arrow Books, 2006). Dr. Samuel Kobia, Annetta Miller, Harold Miller, Ms. Lillian W. Mwaura, Mr. Joshua S. Muiru, Ms. Njeri Muhoro, Prof. Gideon Cyrus Mutiso, and Mr. Titus K. Muya. While working with the National Council of Women of Kenya, Maathai developed the idea that village women could improve the environment by planting trees to provide a fuel source and to slow the processes of deforestation and desertification. Upon her divorce, her ex-husband insisted that she drop his surname. Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai was a pragmatic rather than a dogmatic figure, with no rigid ideological stance in her engagement with the environment and the politics of Kenya. This, she did at high personal risk to her and to her friends. 2021 marks 10 years since Prof . Later, when she was denied the opportunity to participate in elective politics, she invested her energies into the development of the GBM which became her signature lifetime achievement, widely honored on numerous occasions for its pioneer tree-planting ventures and the related empowerment of women. Nevertheless, it was not easy balancing bringing up three children, earning a living, carving her identity, as well as navigating through turbulent political waters.29. << /Contents 27 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 612 792 ] /Parent 43 0 R /Resources << /ExtGState << /G3 38 0 R >> /Font << /F4 39 0 R /F5 40 0 R /F6 41 0 R /F7 42 0 R >> /ProcSet [ /PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI ] >> /StructParents 0 /Type /Page >> 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. Kelly reflects on juggling motherhood and chasing the news. Prof. Hofmann had a mission to fulfill at the emerging University College, Nairobi: to establish a Department of Veterinary Anatomy in the School of Veterinary Medicine. The GBM was launched under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK), an umbrella organization which brought grassroots womens organizations together for the advancement of women. In 2005 ten heads of state of countries bordering Congo Basin recognized her by giving her the title of goodwill ambassador for the Congo Basin rainforest ecosystema responsibility which she cherished.61 I remember once visiting her office to find her immersed in the study of French so as to discharge the responsibilities of the new position. The contending social forces of the colonial period persisted in postcolonial Kenya, impinging on the concept of modern marriage and incipient African womanhood. Bruce Currie-Alder, Ravi Kanbur, David Malone, and Rohinton Medhora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), chapter 52. Higher Education While Maathai was cloistered in Catholic schools, the country was undergoing the turbulence of Mau Mau resistance against British colonialism. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, a non-governmental organization, which encourages women to plant trees to combat deforestation and environmental degradation. Anyone can read what you share. But as painful as it was, it seems to have given Maathai a measure of latitude to pursue her interests and achieve success as an activist. Her adage that when we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope remains an inspiration. 23 0 obj AfDB, Eminent Speakers Program, Wangari Maathai Underscores Importance of Good Governance in Poverty Reduction Efforts, October 27, 2010. In her lifetime, Dr. Wangari Maathai authored four books and numerous scientific publications. 21. 26 0 obj 33. Wangari Maathai, the most prominent environmental activist in Africa, was the 2004 recipient of the Alfred Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari Muta Maathai Anchor was a prominent Kenyan environmental and political activist. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. << /Linearized 1 /L 82815 /H [ 810 195 ] /O 26 /E 63939 /N 11 /T 82414 >> When they got married, she changed her name to Wangari Mathai, which she initially resisted, but did so on the insistence of her husband. Her life was a series of firsts: the first woman to gain a Ph.D. in East and Central Africa; the first female chair of a department at the University of Nairobi; and the first African woman and the first environmentalist to receive the . Timothy Njoya, We the People: Thinking Heavenly Acting Kenyan (Nairobi, Kenya: WordAlive Publishers, 2017). Cyrus G. Mutiso, Kenya: Politics Policy and Society (Nairobi, Kenya: East African Literature Bureau, 1975), 145, described the concept Asomi as Africans who early on acquired missionary education and differentiated themselves from those who had no Western education. Maathai and other writers have described at length the methodologies and approaches utilized by the GBM to reach out to rural women, building awareness regarding the needs of the environment and the adoption of relevant innovations.31 Such were the modalities and characteristics of the movement, resulting in a culture of tree planting that was nurtured widely among Kenyans. She resigned from her comfortable position at the University of Nairobi to contest a by-election in a rural constituency. 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. Maathai interacted on a daily basis with women who were decision-makers and leaders. Thus, the NCWK provided an appropriate platform to develop and experiment with innovative ideas such as the GBM. Maathais academic studies at Mount St. Scholastica College prepared her for entry into graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh in 1964, where she completed a masters degree in biology before returning to Kenya early1966. Wangari Maathai was able to achieve a large degree of educational and professional successes despite her rural beginnings in a fiercely patriarchal society and within a male . This policy was implemented from the mid-1950s and accelerated in the 60s and 70s by the independent government of Kenya. Historian G. Muriuki refers to this early mixing of ethnic groups in The History of the Kikuyu, 15001900 (Nairobi, Kenya: Oxford University Press, 1974). Yet in my various struggles I have been fortunate to receive the encouragement and support of many individuals and institutions both in Kenya and overseas, who have stood by me in difficult times. It thus became a critical constituency for experimenting with new ideas. Maathai was a frequent contributor to international publications such as the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian. I was learning on the job, she later admitted.58 Her approach to issues was not a fundamental threat to underlying religious, gender, cultural, or other ideological orders, though interests of elites and actors in the authoritarian state took offense. 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. Natural resources and further encroachment on forests and water towers.43 and Ndegwa, Walking in Kenyatta Struggles, 8791 high! 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