Mwangi, on the other hand, was working for a private corporation and was a business entrepreneur with political ambitions. Primary Sources. The degree was conferred by the President of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, then Chancellor of University College, Nairobi. Omissions? While her father was formally educated, her mother was not. Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai had been successful in building a grassroots movement, but she fell into the trap of competitive politics as the best way forward. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wangari-Maathai, The Nobel Prize - Biography of Wangari Maathai, Wangari Muta Maathai - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Wangari Maathai - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Maathais campaigns to empower women may have been rooted in these experiences of gender inequalities and marginalization.53, In the 80s most African countries underwent structural adjustment policies leading to economic and social reforms, the privatization of state enterprises, and the limitation of the role of the state in development activities.54 These externally initiated reforms impacted negatively on the provision of health, education, and other social services. Maathais exposure to other Kenyan ethnic communities broadened when she moved onto a settlers farm in the Nakuru area where her father was employed. However, no healing of the scars inflicted on you, I am convinced, can equal the soothing of the Nobel Peace Prize you have now won. It also diffused opportunities for deepening an understanding of environment challenges in the country. It was bolstered by the introduction of cash crops such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum, and the introduction of exotic dairy cows. These forms of marginalization of women were common in Kenya. When she was growing up, her father, a truck driver, made sure she was brought into family discussions and valued her opinions. This was a political maneuver intended to weaken the chairperson role and a calculated strategy to undermine umbrella organizations by the withdrawal of members. 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. Wangari Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount . In many areas of Kenya, the tree cover was restored. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Wangari Maathai spent her life fighting for and promoting democracy and peace, sustainable development, and the empowerment of women. In 2007, the region would explode into postelection violence, something which she had foreseen and tried hard to mitigate by cultivating a culture of peace for almost two decades. This was a joint program between the University of Giessen and University College, Nairobi. 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. She observed: Working for justice and freedom is often a lonely and dispirited business. It thus became a critical constituency for experimenting with new ideas. Future research could explore further the tensions that marriages of educated elites encountered, while still embedded in their ethnic traditions. 27 0 obj Wangari Maathai, The Challenge for Africa: A New Vision (London: William Heinemann, 2009); on culture, 160183; and on mother tongues, 220226. The Ndegwa Report of 1971 legitimized such practices.46 These practices tended to concentrate wealth and power among few elites, predominantly from one ethnic group. Maathai is internationally renowned for her unrelenting efforts in advocating democracy, environmental conservation and human rights. 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. The influence of the nuns began in this school and continued all the way to university. The resulting dislocation and labor migration initiated an environmental transformation that was accelerated in subsequent decades. In his memoir, Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir (Nairobi, Kenya: Kenway Publications, 2010), 110, Ngugi Wa Thiongo narrates similar experiences in regard to speaking Gikuyu in school. A number of factors and circumstances seem to have contributed to the emergence, rise, and success of the GBM as a development actor. First, it is necessary to interrogate and appreciate the less than ideal circumstances under which the GBM rose and flourished. I stand before you and the world humbled by this recognition and uplifted by the honour of being the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate. 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. Forest cover was also decimated as large-scale farms were subdivided and select forest reserves were hived off for settlement purposes. 31. 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". She creatively defied this by changing her last name to Maathai, by adding an a to her ex-husbands surname. Maathai seems to have been aware of these tensions as she juggled the roles of mother, politicians wife, and university teacher, as well as affirming herself as an African womanin manner of dressing, hospitality at home, and speaking local languages to meet the expectations of her husbands constituents.28 Hence her marriage might have become a theater of contestations of different perceptions of womanhood in independent Kenya. 49. Thus, the NCWK provided an appropriate platform to develop and experiment with innovative ideas such as the GBM. 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. Wangari Muta Maathai Anchor was a prominent Kenyan environmental and political activist. The women formed an important constituency of this work which politicians could not ignore. 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. Their approach is wonderfully illustrated in a documentary Taking Roots: The vision of Wangari Maathai. In 2004, Maathai was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her contribution to protecting the environment and empowering women in Africa. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, Kenya, Bridging Ethnic Divides: A Commissioners Experience on Cohesion and Integration (Nairobi, Kenya: Mdahalo Bridging Divides, 2018). 1 Her homeland was established by the British as the East Africa Protectorate in 1895 and then became the Kenya Colony in 1920; the independent Republic of Kenya emerged in 1964 after gaining internal self-government the prior year. 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. Modern farming methods were introduced to small-scale farmers through the provision of extension services and credit facilities. 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. Use these quotes in discussing Wangari Maathai's life and how her views and activities changed over the course of her lifetime. 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. She was brought up, taught, encouraged, and mentored by womenher mother, village women, and teachers (nuns in particular). 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. Upon her divorce, her ex-husband insisted that she drop his surname. This left the NCWK in a precarious financial situation and effected the severing of relationships with many grassroots organizations. He eventually became a member of parliament for a constituency in Nairobi. In her final years, she battled ovarian cancer. [i] She was born in Nyeri, part of the rural region of Kenya on the 1st of April 1940. 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. 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. endobj Her resignation was accepted, but she was disqualified to stand as a candidate allegedly because she had not been registered as a voter. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Later Years and Death. The list of supporterswomen, men, and institutions in Kenya and elsewherewould be long. The couple had their upbringing and initial education in colonial Kenya before going to the United States for university education. in biology, 1964) and at the University of Pittsburgh (M.S., 1966). Her mother had a great deal of influence on her daughter as she grew up in the village. Agricultural cooperatives were established in rural areas to ensure that quality agricultural commodities were produced and marketed. With Wairimu Nderitu, Mukami Kimathi: Mau Freedom Fighter (Nairobi, Kenya: Mdahalo Bridging Divides, 2017); and Caroline Elkins, Britains Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (London: The Bodley Head, 2014), 237238. 24 0 obj The culture of planting trees took root everywhere in Kenya toward the end of last decade of the 20th century. << /Filter /FlateDecode /S 128 /Length 115 >> At college in the United States, she found it confusing to be referred as Miss Wangari. 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 born as Wangari Muta on 1 April 1940 in the village of Ihithe in the central highlands of the colony of Kenya. Hence the proliferation of NGOs with concerns such as the environment, the development of microfinance, peace building, human rights, and the empowerment of women.55 This was accompanied by increased funding for civil society organizations due to increased concerns about the accountability of governments which were also perceived as authoritarian and corrupt. Wangari Muta Maathai dedicated her life to solving some of these key issues in Kenya and the world. ed. Her position at the university also opened opportunities to venture into other fields of service and leadership for which she was to become well known in addition to her academic pursuits. Under the auspices of the NCWK, the GBM, with limited donor funding, gradually evolved into a platform to educate and empower rural communities and Kenyans in general. 42. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Thus she became Wangari Muta Maathai, asserting her African identity and freedom to be known and called by the names she wanted (Maathai, Unbowed, 147). It is imperative to appreciate how engagement with the GBM widened Maathais horizons and capacity to confront authoritarianism, interrogate democratic governance, gender inequality, conflicts and peace, and engage with broader concerns of sustainable development and climate change. 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