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Green Belt Movement - Blog Posts

sisterhooddiaries

1 year ago

Wangarĩ Muta Maathai

A color photograph of a Black woman, Maathai, in a blue dress, smiling at the camera and holding a small tree.

The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangarĩ Muta Maathai, Ph.D. (1940-2011) was a Kenyan social, environmental, and political activist.

Born in Ihithe, the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Maathai studied at boarding schools and was rated first in her class. East African colonialism was ending around the same time as her high school, and Maathai was one of 300 Kenyans selected to study in the United States in the Airlift Africa program for college.

She received a bachelor's in biology with minors in chemistry and German, and then a master's in biology. She would receive her Ph.D. in veterinary anatomy from the University of Nairobi.

In 1977, Maathai started the 'Green Belt Movement', a grassroots-based NGO focused on environmental conservation, under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya. The Green Belt Movement is a holistically-minded one, and it believes that equality for women, economic development, and justice are parts of environmental justice rather than obstacles.

Since the Green Belt Movement started, over 51 million trees have been planted and over 30,000 women have been trained in environmental-related trades.

Maathai was an elected member of the Parliament of Kenya, the 1984 winner of the Right Livelihood Award, an author of several books, and a winner of both the Nobel Peace Prize (2004) and Indira Gandhi Peace Prize (2006)