The link was not copied. Mathaai was named Wangari at birth after her fathers mother, as was Gikuyu tradition. She was tasked with domestic chores as was expected of young girls in traditional society. These experiences emboldened her to fight against ethnic discrimination and gender inequalities which she encountered in the same institution and in the country generally. Local experiences also infused global thinking and appreciation of struggles for democratic governance, peace, and sustainable development. Among them were the activists and the brokers of power. After completing her high school education in 1959, at Loreto School, Maathai embarked on another educational journey, this time to the United States. Her entire life was thus characterized by learning, critical observations, engagement, interactions with people, and advocacy for change. There her interest in the sciences was further nurtured by the Catholic nun teachers. 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. In the midst of her demanding career as an environmental and political activist, Maathai enjoyed motherhood and was very protective of her children. It became known as the home of renowned Mau Mau freedom fighters, outstanding postcolonial leaders, and intellectuals.4 Leaders such as the legendary freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi, former President Mwai Kibaki, and Wangari Maathai had their beginnings in the district. Maathai was born in polygamous family. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Further information about these conferences can be found in the Links to Digital Materials section. 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. Her resignation was accepted, but she was disqualified to stand as a candidate allegedly because she had not been registered as a voter. While her father was formally educated, her mother was not. While working for the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976, Maathai came up with . The GBM is thus credited with developing a culture of planting trees during important family, community, and national events. She had already won many awards and was eventually awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Wangari Maathai, The Challenge for Africa: A New Vision (London: William Heinemann, 2009); on culture, 160183; and on mother tongues, 220226. Maathai had the unique opportunity of going to school when girls in her age group were typically not given the opportunity of doing so. %PDF-1.5 Upon her divorce, her ex-husband insisted that she drop his surname. Maathai is internationally renowned for her unrelenting efforts in advocating democracy, environmental conservation and human rights. 26. 44. 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. 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. Our school calendar. xcbdg`b`8 $1{0@@"$Q$x;A,u me`b H5 dw 31. She affirmed earth and water, air and the waning fire of the sun combine to form the essential elements of life and reveal to me my kinship with the soil.63. Within this paradigm, racism is viewed as the primary impact factor, or in the language of Wangari Maathai, racism is a "root cause." The study draws on the African philosophical framework of Maat as a lens through which to view Maathai's philosophy, and which provides conceptual grounding for understanding that philosophy. Wangari Muta Maathai Anchor was a prominent Kenyan environmental and political activist. xc```b``b`a``f`0$2,~6#\31f3F0f``//^^$bZdQ#n(f`dbg`cX76lb> U) It's teamwork. The degree was conferred by the President of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, then Chancellor of University College, Nairobi. As Maathai ascended to the leadership of the NCWK and the GBM, international concerns and thinking with regard to the linkages between development and environment were evolving and shaping global discourse and the engagement of governments, international agencies, and NGOs. Future research could explore further the tensions that marriages of educated elites encountered, while still embedded in their ethnic traditions. She appealed to environmental and peace constituencies in the global development establishment and was heartily recognized. Maathai was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College; B.S. Maathai, Unbowed, 7. Mwangi, on the other hand, was working for a private corporation and was a business entrepreneur with political ambitions. 25 0 obj She was allocated a mini garden by her mother to cultivate and to learn practically how to care for plants. << /Linearized 1 /L 82815 /H [ 810 195 ] /O 26 /E 63939 /N 11 /T 82414 >> Duncan Ndegwa, Congratulatory Letter, December 2, 2004, in Ndegwa, Walking in Kenyatta Struggles, 595. When she was growing up, her father, a truck driver, made sure she was brought into family discussions and valued her opinions. 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 . Primary Sources. ed. Aid agencies distrusted state actors and channeled more resources to nonstate actors.56. The intention was to pacify central Kenya and create a favorable apolitical climate for consolidating the interests of settlers and the colonial administration. Wangari Maathai (1940-2011), the first woman to obtain a PhD in East and Central Africa, was a scholar, and an environmental and human rights activist. Wangari Maathai, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (New York: Lantern Books, 2003); and Maathai, The Challenge for Africa. 49. She became Wangari Mathai. 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. ed. 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 . These skills stayed with me wherever I went from then on.20 However, this educational experience failed to expose Maathai to the ongoing civil rights struggle or the intense debates in the United States at that time on the vagaries of the Vietnam War. Further information about these conferences can be found in the Links to Digital Materials section. Her interactions with other womenher mother, teachers, and grassroots womenalso had a great impact on her work and commitment. 48. Often their phone calls, faxes, lettersor, later, e-mailsor simply their presence made the difference at a crucial moment. 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. Modern farming methods were introduced to small-scale farmers through the provision of extension services and credit facilities. The impact of changes in rural Kenya was complicated by emerging corruption among Kenyas elite. The University of Nairobi, which had denied her a job in 1982, honored her with an honorary doctorate in 2005 and hosts the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies (WMI), which promotes research on land use, peace, and sustainable development. 36. A number of factors and circumstances seem to have contributed to the emergence, rise, and success of the GBM as a development actor. Wangari Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount . In 1977, Wangari Maathai started a campaign that came to be known as the Green Belt Movement in her home country of Kenya. 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. Hence, she decided to correct the confusion by adopting her full name, Mary Josephine Wangari Muta. Dr. Samuel Kobia, Annetta Miller, Harold Miller, Ms . She died on September 25, 2011, at the age . 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). She also had close relationships with other African regional institutionsfor instance, the African Development Bank (AfDB). 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. There was an aspect of independence in the women Maathai associated with. Women were in control and were making the vital decisions at home, in the village, and at school. In the later stages of her life, as she worked for the restoration of the environment, she often recalled this period nostalgically as a source of inspiration and renewal.7 Field work provided hands-on experience with nature and nurtured a strong attachment to plants, animals, and rivers in the immediate environment. 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. In many instances she learned by imitating what her mother and other village women were doing. 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. Her adage that when we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope remains an inspiration. 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. Hence Maathai was shaped mainly by Gikuyu culture, colonial and postcolonial history, contacts with Catholic clergy, nuns, and grassroots women. It is here that the GBM mobilized women, self-help groups, and communities into tree-planting networks.44 Its reputation soared in the context of environmental advocacy, tree planting, and the raising of awareness of poverty at grassroots levels. 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. However, some people who had early contact with colonialists and missionaries lost valuable land and were displaced, while others were relegated to migrant labor. endobj The influence of the nuns began in this school and continued all the way to university. When they got married, she changed her name to Wangari Mathai, which she initially resisted, but did so on the insistence of her husband. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. It also diffused opportunities for deepening an understanding of environment challenges 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. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there nobody else will do it. 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. Wangari's Words to Live By . Upon her return to Kenya in 1966, she dropped her Christian names and retained her African names, Wangari Muta. 24. That the GBM withstood and survived harassment from the government of Kenya and its security apparatuses was a testimony to the strength and capacity of these networks. This was a rare occurrence in her male-dominated society. 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. Ecologist Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her years of work with women to reverse African deforestation. Maathais exposure to other Kenyan ethnic communities broadened when she moved onto a settlers farm in the Nakuru area where her father was employed. It was bolstered by the introduction of cash crops such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum, and the introduction of exotic dairy cows. In 1966, Maathai returned to Kenya confident and with high hopes for making a contribution to the newly independent country. << /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 >> Wangari Muta Maathai o o tshotsweng ka kgwedi ya Moranang e tlhola gangwe ka ngwaga wa 1940, mme a tlhokafala ka kgwedi ya Lwetse e le malatsi a le masome le botlhano ka ngwaga wa 2011, e ne e le molwela ditshwanelo tsa selegae, tikologo le polotiki wa ko lefatsheng la Kenya, o o simolodisitseng mokgatlho wa Green Belt Movement, o e leng mokgatlho o o ikemetseng ka nosi o o itebagantseng le go . The life of Wangari Muta Maathai (19402011) demonstrates the complex interaction of constructive historical circumstances with the development of an individual. Most studies have focused on the societal importance of marriage and the negative effects of divorce on families. 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. She creatively defied this by changing her last name to Maathai, by adding an a to her ex-husbands surname. She challenged this in court, but her petition was dismissed. << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 1638 >> stream Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, African History. In 1997 and 2002, Maathai ventured into electoral politics once more. Bruce Currie-Alder, Ravi Kanbur, David Malone, and Rohinton Medhora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), chapter 52. Environmental Leader, Political Activist. 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