wangari maathai primary sources

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. 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. I used this source to add more variety to my sources and to get more specific details about Maathai's life. Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist who dedicated her life to promoting sustainable development, democracy, and human rights. However, both were interested in Western education.5 They realized the value of education and encouraged their children to attend school. She sat for the Kenya Primary Examination in 1951 and scored Grade One. Her entire life was thus characterized by learning, critical observations, engagement, interactions with people, and advocacy for change. 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 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. 51. 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. Africentrism. 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. During this period the GBM thrived, leading to the recognition of Maathai. That she accompanied mothers of political detainees at the Freedom Corner to fight for the release of their incarcerated children is indicative of how she identified with the struggles of ordinary Kenyans in confronting an authoritarian regime. 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 . Researching ticks at the University of Nairobi also exposed Maathai to the environmental degradation taking place in rural Kenya and its impact on the livelihoods of rural women. 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. 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. Corrections? in biology, 1964) and at the University of Pittsburgh (M.S., 1966). Future research could explore further the tensions that marriages of educated elites encountered, while still embedded in their ethnic traditions. stream 29. Their divorce was highly publicized. Hence Maathai was shaped mainly by Gikuyu culture, colonial and postcolonial history, contacts with Catholic clergy, nuns, and grassroots women. The NCWK nurtured this initiative, enabling it to reach out and empower rural women. Environmental Leader, Political Activist. Our school calendar. Professor Wangari Muta Maathai was born to Muta Njugi and his wife Wanjiru Muta in Nyeri, Kenya on 1st April 1940. The most important dates and events in the current school year can be found in our calendar. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Her time in academia gave her opportunities to engage in voluntary community activities that were not strictly academic, although regarded as part of university community service. 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. Their approach is wonderfully illustrated in a documentary Taking Roots: The vision of Wangari Maathai. Lawrence M. Njoroge, A Century of Catholic Endeavour: Holy Ghost and Consolata Missions in Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya: Pauline Publications Africa, 2000); Samuel G. Kibicho, God and Revelation in an African Context (Nairobi, Kenya: Action Publishers, 2006); and David P. Sandgren, Mau Maus Children: The Making of Kenyas Postcolonial Elite (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012). She was tasked with domestic chores as was expected of young girls in traditional society. In 2004, Maathai was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her contribution to protecting the environment and empowering women in Africa. 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. Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. 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. This, she did at high personal risk to her and to her friends. 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. In the last three decades it has become the cosmopolitan and partially urbanized County of Nyeri. ed. 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. << /Linearized 1 /L 82815 /H [ 810 195 ] /O 26 /E 63939 /N 11 /T 82414 >> M. P. K. Sorrenson, Land Reform in Kikuyu Country (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). Wangari's Words to Live By . endstream The document argued that by creating a class of privileged rural farmers, the radicalization of peasants would be minimized, thus denying support for Mau Mau and other radical political elements. She became Wangari Mathai. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. (Nairobi, Kenya: Leadership Institute, 2011); and Wangari Maathai, Unbowed: One Womans Story (London: Arrow Books, 2006). Aid agencies distrusted state actors and channeled more resources to nonstate actors.56. As a young girl growing up in Kenya, Wangari was surrounded by trees. 46. 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 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. 54. At the insistence of her mother and her brother Nderitu, Maathai was enrolled at a Presbyterian church Primary School, Ihitheand there began her exposure to Western education.8 This experience ignited a passion for education, which Maathai captured in later writings: How I longed to be able to write something and rub it out. Located between the Aberdares Mountains and Mount Kenya, the Nyeri District was well known as the epicenter of Gikuyu resistance to colonialism and the imposition of colonial taxation. Born on April 1, 1940 Wangari Maathai grew up in Nyeri County, located in the central highlands of Kenya. All the girls in the school came from the same community, but were prohibited from speaking their language. The couple had similar family backgrounds. Wangari Maathai, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (New York: Lantern Books, 2003); and Maathai, The Challenge for Africa. Kabiru Kinyanjui, ed., Non-Government Organizations (NGOs): Contributions to Development, Occasional Paper, no. 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 . As the first African woman to . Wangari Muta was born on April 1, 1940, in Ihithe, Nyeri Province, Kenya during British colonial rule. This may have shaped her strong ecumenical stance evident in later years. Describing her experience at St. Cecilias Intermediate Primary School, Maathai writes: I really enjoyed learning and had a knack for being an attentive listener and very focused in the classroom, while being extremely playful outside of it.10 However, colonial education also exposed her to contradictions and challenges with regard to African cultures and in particular with regard to her mother tongue.11 In her school, speaking in her mother tongue was a punishable offense. 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. Anyone can read what you share. Once again finding her options limited, she went on to pursue a doctorate from the University of Giessen in Germany. 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. 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. Thirdly, the prevailing circumstances, both personal and organizational, called for the strengthening of the NCWK and the GBM by building networks and partnerships to facilitate funding and support. I stand before you and the world humbled by this recognition and uplifted by the honour of being the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate. She had become a global figure. 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). 25. 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. One of Maathais remarkable gifts and indeed a notable strength was her ability to build alliances between local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international NGOs, with environmental celebrities, activists, and the press, thereby raising local and global awareness of grassroots environmental issues. She was indeed an African environmental icon as testified by her appointment to the prestigious position of goodwill ambassador for the Congo Basin rainforest ecosystem. This conspicuous trajectory rendered her quite visible and a target of concern by the authoritarian state and political system.32, Upon Maathai being elected chairperson in 1980, the largest member organization in the council, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, withdrew its membership. Christian missionaries, in corollary fashion, established mission stations for evangelism and offered limited basic education to the indigenous people.2 In the community where Maathai was raised there was limited interaction with other Kenyan ethnic communities, although sporadic interaction with Maasai herders in their quest for grazing areas was common.

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