“CES Canada has a profound appreciation and expresses its depth of gratitude for the work of Professor Wangari Maathai. Fondly referred to as “Mother Nature” her adamant and poignant message to invest in the education of girls in Kenya resonates with the vision CES has for all children to learn and to attend school.” Cescan
Band members from the Kenya police, wildlife service, and forest service play as a portrait of the late Wangari Maathai stands by the hearse carrying her coffin at her state funeral held at freedom corner in Uhuru Park, Nairobi. Kenyans bade farewell to Wangari Maathai in a colorful state funeral marked with prayers, praises and tree planting. Photo: Khalil Senosi / AP
News of Wangari Maathai’s death on Sunday, September 25, 2011 spread around the world like wildfire. She was the first African Woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Her charismatic leadership for the Green Belt Movement made her front page news in Kenya and around the world. She rose to the stature of being mentioned in the same breath as humanitarian luminaries like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Wangari Maathai is the leading reminder that an Africa Renaissance is only possible through the liberation and empowerment of women. Her contribution to democracy, women’s rights, economic development and environmental conservation is potentially in every Kenyan girl only if they are afforded the opportunity. While the plight of girls in Africa isn’t as drastic as it was when Professor Maathai was growing up, there is still a lot left to be done. Female literacy rates remain considerable lower than those of males in Sub- Saharan Africa. Harmful cultural practices, including female genital mutilation, forced marriages and child labor are still rampant, undermining the dignity of women and denying girls’ access to education. Also, the pervasive gender-based violence and sexual coercion exposes young girls to early pregnancies and HIV/AIDS.
Reproductive health empowerment still remains an unaffordable privilege as girls and women have inadequate access to health care. Absence of sanitary pads makes it difficult for girls to attend school during menstruation. Eventually, girls drop out of school at a young age, increasing their chances to engage in prostitution or early marriages. Limited availability of contraception, as well as the education to promote safe- sex practices, has forced teenage girls into unsafe abortions, some of which have resulted to infertility and death.
At a special ceremony in Copenhagen, Ban Ki-moon, right, inducts Wangari Maathai as a UN Messenger of Peace.
Professor Wangari Maathai advocated for justice and equality for all. She crusaded for women, jobless people and youth. Even the Greenbelt Movement grew out of Wangari’s sense of justice and the need to take care of the planet as well as the people who were suffering as a consequence of deforestation, poverty, and poor social policies that neglected the plight of the vast majority of the people. This began in the late 1970s when she was Chairperson of the National Council of Women of Kenya and head of the Environment Committee which would eventually become the Greenbelt Movement. Her vision, conviction, brilliant ideas and a burning passion to serve as an instrument for the good of her people soon became a “thorn in the flesh” for others who felt threatened.
As a child she had been taught by the nuns in her school that the blessings bestowed on her in the form of a good education and opportunities to excel were gifts she had to apply and use to advance the lives of others less fortunate than herself.
Wangari Maathai became recognized as a world-acclaimed environmentalist as well as a grounded social activist. She was elected as an MP in the Kenyan parliament. She also suffered for her strong beliefs through repeated beatings, incarceration and harassments both public and private.
Her Nobel Prize in 2004 was for her successfully showing the world the clear-cut connection between resource depletion, poverty and war. She was honored for identifying how protecting the earth’s natural resources is an important peace-making strategy. Wangari Maathai planted millions of trees to prevent the spread of the desert and to strengthen the environment.
“Planting trees was also one way for her to combat the country’s dictatorship,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in their message.
Professor Maathai was 71 when she passed away. She was diagnosed with cancer in July 2010.
She is survived by her three children–Waweru, Wanjira, and Muta, and her granddaughter, Ruth Wangari.
Prof Maathai will be remembered for her courage and tenacity in seeking social justice, conservation, democracy and in fighting corruption.
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Article written with acknowledgement of several Kenya Daily Nation articles – 2009-11
CES Canada also recommends the following video on the Green Belt Movement.
CES Canada recommends the following books by Professor Wangari Maathai:
Unbowed: A Memoir
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)
In Unbowed, Wangari Maathai offers an inspiriting message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency. We see her studying with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a Ph.D. in East and Central Africa and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government and she makes clear the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement.
Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World
(New York: Doubleday Image, 2010)
It is so easy, in our modern world, to feel disconnected from the physical earth. Despite dire warnings and escalating concern over the state of our planet, many people feel out of touch with the natural world. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has spent decades working with the Green Belt Movement to help women in rural Kenya plant—and sustain—millions of trees. With their hands in the dirt, these women often find themselves empowered and “at home” in a way they never did before. Maathai wants to impart that feeling to everyone, and believes that the key lies in traditional spiritual values: love for the environment, self-betterment, gratitude and respect, and a commitment to service. While educated in the Christian tradition, Maathai draws inspiration from many faiths, celebrating the Jewish mandate tikkun olam (“repair the world” and renewing the Japanese term mottainai(“don’t waste”). Through rededication to these values, she believes, we might finally bring about healing for ourselves and the earth.
