wangari maathai primary sources

Then she was confronted with the fact that she had no job nor house to live inhard realities. 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. Modern farming methods were introduced to small-scale farmers through the provision of extension services and credit facilities. These agrarian reforms were adopted and intensified by the postcolonial government, leading to the increased degradation of rural areas. When Maathai decided to vie for an elected position, she underestimated the determination of the state to frustrate and contain her ambitions. These forms of marginalization of women were common in Kenya. While working for the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976, Maathai came up with . Each of these fields of her engagement merit detailed analysis as was done with the GBM. 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. Political activist and environmentalist Wangari Maathai was trained to be a leader. Maathai was born in polygamous family. Wangari Maathai, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (New York: Lantern Books, 2003); and Maathai, The Challenge for Africa. Maathai, The Challenge for Africa, 1112 and 272273. This experience exposed her, perhaps for the first time, to ethnic discrimination practiced by a lecturer at the college, who had originally given her the job offer.22 Later on, when employed by the university, she encountered gender discrimination with regard to salary and benefits, against which she fought energetically with her women colleagues. She was presented by Professor Ole Danbolt Mjs, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. 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. In 2004, Maathai was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her contribution to protecting the environment and empowering women in Africa. 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. 30. She was the first woman to be awarded a PhD in veterinary sciences and the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). When cash crops were introduced, again it was men who were registered in the cooperatives and received payments after deliveries of tea and coffee. This was a rare occurrence in her male-dominated society. Her adage that when we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope remains an inspiration. 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. The early Gikuyu patterns of rural settlements are described by Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (New York: Vintage Books, 1965); Duncan Ndegwa, Walking in Kenyatta Struggles: My Story, 2nd ed. When they got married, she changed her name to Wangari Mathai, which she initially resisted, but did so on the insistence of her husband. The Green Belt Movement, an organization she founded in 1977, had by the early 21st century planted some 30 million trees. %PDF-1.5 While undertaking her studies, Maathai learned how Christianity practiced in American, European, and African societies blended well with their dominant cultures. 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. Mwangi, on the other hand, was working for a private corporation and was a business entrepreneur with political ambitions. Timothy Njoya, We the People: Thinking Heavenly Acting Kenyan (Nairobi, Kenya: WordAlive Publishers, 2017). << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 1638 >> 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. Primary Sources. 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. Local experiences also infused global thinking and appreciation of struggles for democratic governance, peace, and sustainable development. In 1979, when she vied for the position of chairperson, she encountered ethnic and political intrigues, and personal innuendos, citing her as a divorced and educated woman. Thus, the NCWK provided an appropriate platform to develop and experiment with innovative ideas such as the GBM. 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. 24 0 obj The women formed an important constituency of this work which politicians could not ignore. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. The daughter of a peasant farmer and the third . The NCWK nurtured this initiative, enabling it to reach out and empower rural women. In many instances she learned by imitating what her mother and other village women were doing. I'm very conscious of the fact that you can't do it alone. Accounts from friends indicate that both parents were devoted to the well-being and education of their children. A decision to send Maathai to school was made by her mother at the instigation of Nderitu, an elder brother. 2003), detailed the history of the organization. A. 3. Women were in control and were making the vital decisions at home, in the village, and at school. 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. Maathai was a frequent contributor to international publications such as the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian. A number of factors and circumstances seem to have contributed to the emergence, rise, and success of the GBM as a development actor. Maathais election to parliament was almost an anticlimax. On this farm she interacted with ordinary people from other ethnic communities as well as foreigners. Colonialism in Kenya was a major force for social differentiation. 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. 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. Hannah Wangechi Kinoti, African Ethics: Gikuyu Traditional Morality (Nairobi, Kenya: Catholic University of Eastern Africa Press, 2013). 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. Environmental Leader, Political Activist. Maathai was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College; B.S. Kabiru Kinyanjui, ed., Non-Government Organizations (NGOs): Contributions to Development, Occasional Paper, no. 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. At that time, she was working as an assistant lecturer at the University College, Nairobi. As an alternative, she chose to further her education, which led to a doctorate in the field of veterinary science from the University of Giessen, a first for an eastern African woman, for which she was widely recognized. 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 . 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. Justin Chang reviews Showing Up.Groban first auditioned to . 49. Hence, she decided to correct the confusion by adopting her full name, Mary Josephine Wangari Muta. In some circles, her move in the direction of elective politics was seen as opportunistic.40 Fortunately, this did not ruin the GBM, a tragedy that often befalls institutions from which prominent leaders emerge. 60. At times she utilized these international alliances and networks to expose the atrocities and injustices that people had suffered under the auspices of their own government. 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. While Maathai was cloistered in Catholic schools, the country was undergoing the turbulence of Mau Mau resistance against British colonialism. Unbowed: A Memoir . 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. Wangari Maathai. 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! 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. 62. 2021 marks 10 years since Prof . In 1960, she benefited from what in Kenya was called the Tom Mboya Airlift to the United States, for education in preparation for independence. She benefited mainly from the tide of change which was sweeping the country, not because she had articulated her own political ideas.42. Wangari Muta Maathai dedicated her life to solving some of these key issues in Kenya and the world. With the reduced role of the state and increased indebtedness of African countries, new spaces for other development actors emerged. A meeting with Prof. Reinhold Hofmann from the University of Giessen in Germany provided an opportunity not only for employment but also for the advancement of her field of interest at the upcoming university. The life of Wangari Muta Maathai (19402011) was strongly shaped by her rural environment, missionary education, and exposure to university education in the United States and Germany. The degree was conferred by the President of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, then Chancellor of University College, Nairobi. 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. The intention was to pacify central Kenya and create a favorable apolitical climate for consolidating the interests of settlers and the colonial administration. Fresh Air Weekend Fresh Air Weekend: NPR host Mary Louise Kelly; Josh Groban. 17. 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. As a national school, Loreto High School provided Maathai with the opportunity to interact with girls from other ethnic groups in Kenya. The prevailing cultural attitudes toward Western education and especially education for girls were hostile. It's teamwork. She was brought up, taught, encouraged, and mentored by womenher mother, village women, and teachers (nuns in particular). The contending social forces of the colonial period persisted in postcolonial Kenya, impinging on the concept of modern marriage and incipient African womanhood. Maathais exposure to other Kenyan ethnic communities broadened when she moved onto a settlers farm in the Nakuru area where her father was employed. As a young girl growing up in Kenya, Wangari was surrounded by trees. 16. 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. 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. 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. Her achievements were appealing to all ideological shades. Maathai was born in a small rural village known as Ihithe in the Tetu division in what was then the Nyeri District. Africentrism. << /Filter /FlateDecode /S 128 /Length 115 >> Primary Sources Overview . She died on September 25, 2011, at the age . Two years into their marriage, she attained her PhD, which accelerated her career in academia. Among them were the activists and the brokers of power. xc```b``b`a``f`0$2,~6#\31f3F0f``//^^$bZdQ#n(f`dbg`cX76lb> U) Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. 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. 55. This formal education opened unparalleled opportunities in colonial and postcolonial Kenya. In 1977, Wangari Maathai started a campaign that came to be known as the Green Belt Movement in her home country of Kenya. 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. 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. 33. 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. Maathai, Wangari. Further information about these conferences can be found in the Links to Digital Materials section. 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. In 1997 and 2002, Maathai ventured into electoral politics once more. 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. 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. The first indigenous woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, Professor Maathai started school in 1948 at Ihithe Primary School. Her resignation was accepted, but she was disqualified to stand as a candidate allegedly because she had not been registered as a voter. 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. endobj I am sure that this honour will now usher in a new beginning with new sensibilities to match. 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. However, both were interested in Western education.5 They realized the value of education and encouraged their children to attend school. Under colonialism, indigenous Kenyan cultures were besieged. He offered Maathai the job of a research assistant on the basis of skills acquired during her studies and work exposure in the United States.23. 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. Died on September 25, 2011, at the age the activists and the world the increased degradation of areas..., African Ethics: Gikuyu Traditional Morality ( Nairobi, Kenya: WordAlive,. And contain her ambitions to correct the confusion by adopting her full name, Mary Josephine Wangari Muta extension. Develop and experiment with innovative ideas such as the GBM in postcolonial Kenya and empower rural.... 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