Our regular contributor Hassan Wanini tells us why Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai is his African Hero…
In September last year, we lost one of the most celebrated Africans of our times: Wangari Maathai. She was well known as leading political, environmental and human rightsactivist.
Coming from a humble background, Maathai gained a scholarship to study Biology in the US and went on to Germany to pursue a doctorate. This led her to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to be honoured with a PhD.
It was on her return to Kenya thereafter that Maathai became involved in activism. Whilst lecturing in Nairobi she successfully campaigned for female staff to get benefits equal to those of their male counterparts.
In the 70s, Maathai established the Green Belt Movement, an organisation that rallied Kenyan communities across the country to plant trees in parks and forests. By 1986, The Green Belt Movement had expanded throughout Africa and as a result, the Pan-African Green Belt Network was founded. Representatives from all over Africa were now travelling to Nairobi, Kenya to exchange ideas on how to promote reforestation.
Because the Green Belt Movement worked a lot with women across Kenya who helped provide seedlings for the planting of trees, Wangari Maathai also became vocal on issues concerning women’s rights.
One of Maathai’s biggest feats was successfully campaigning against the construction of a multimillion dollar complex by the Kenyan Government in Uhuru Park, Nairobi. In her campaigning to the British and American Governments who were funding the project, she equated it to building a complex in Hyde Park or Central Park. After a lot of campaigning, foreign investors pulled out of the project and this catapulted Maathai’s popularity countrywide.
In 1992 Maathai took part in a hunger strike to get the government to release political prisoners. A year later, having rallied Kenyans with her leadership, the prisoners were released. A year later, tribal clashes erupted in Kenya and once again Wangari Maathai was there to quell the violence and promote peace by planting “trees of peace” throughout the areas where violence was taking place.
In 1998 Wangari Maathai once again rallied protesters and prevented the Kenyan government from privatising huge swaths of public land in the Karura Forest, just outside the capital of Kenya, Nairobi.
In 2004 Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”. By the time of her death over 30 million trees had been planted primarily by Kenyan women as a result of Maathai’s Green Belt Movement.
Having said all this, we all know there’s only one thing left for me to do… do justice to her legend and crown her the ultimate African hero!
