wangari maathai primary sourceswangari maathai primary sources

Maathais parents were among the first people to interact with and gain some education from the missionaries (athomi or asomi). Wangari Maathai came from a family of Athomi (Maathai, Unbowed, 1112). Maathai, Unbowed, 112, 144, 151155. She challenged this in court, but her petition was dismissed. She also became a keen and influential player in the spectrum of international conferences.51, Maathais life was intricately related to the predicament of women. 55. Such strengths also helped to secure funding for the GBM and to ensure, in some measure, Maathais personal security. The accompanying population explosion also meant more people needed to be fed, educated, and their various needs provided for. Kibicho, God and Revelation, 72168. When conflict engulfed central Kenya and some men went into the forest to fight and others detained, it was women who took care of their families: providing food, building houses, and in some cases educating children.52 When Maathai came home during the school holidays, this was the reality that confronted her. 3. 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. These groups played critical roles in shaping the values and politics that she espoused for social justice, sustainable development, and climate change. Women were in control and were making the vital decisions at home, in the village, and at school. 33. The Swynnerton Plan and subsequent government policies informed land settlement schemes which were funded by the British government to buy out white settler farmers, and to appease released Mau Mau detainees and landless people displaced as result of land consolidation in native reserves. These land reforms changed the social, economic, political, and ecological landscape of central Kenya, and affected village life and the environment where Maathai grew up. Wangari Maathai. Maathai was a pragmatic rather than a dogmatic figure, with no rigid ideological stance in her engagement with the environment and the politics of Kenya. Their approach is wonderfully illustrated in a documentary Taking Roots: The vision of Wangari Maathai. The degree was conferred by the President of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, then Chancellor of University College, Nairobi. In many instances she learned by imitating what her mother and other village women were doing. Other influential circumstances include an encounter on a settlers farm in the Nakuru region of Kenya, engagements with women in tree-planting ventures, and intense protracted struggles for the democratization of Kenya. 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. She was also the first female scholar from East and Central Africa to take a doctorate (in biology), and the first female professor ever in her home country of Kenya. It was bolstered by the introduction of cash crops such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum, and the introduction of exotic dairy cows. When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope. 47. In discussing her childhood in her autobiography, Maathai paints a picture of an idyllic life set in a pristine and lush rural environment. It also diffused opportunities for deepening an understanding of environment challenges in the country. Her position at the university also opened opportunities to venture into other fields of service and leadership for which she was to become well known in addition to her academic pursuits. They energized governments, development agencies, civil society organizations and, in particular, womens movements and environmental activists all over the world. The encounter with expatriate Germans opened a unique opportunity for Maathai. She had a bucolic childhood spent in the rural Kenyan countryside and was sent to St. Cecilia Intermediary, a mission school, for her primary education. The Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai: Key Speeches and Articles, November 11, 2020. 44. Accounts from friends indicate that both parents were devoted to the well-being and education of their children. 15. Hence the dynamics of local and international forces coalesced in the work of the GBM. 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. The document argued that by creating a class of privileged rural farmers, the radicalization of peasants would be minimized, thus denying support for Mau Mau and other radical political elements. The link was not copied. At that time, she was working as an assistant lecturer at the University College, Nairobi. 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. But as land consolidation and registration went on in central Kenya, it was men who were registered as owners, although it was women who cultivated the land. Duncan Ndegwa, Congratulatory Letter, December 2, 2004, in Ndegwa, Walking in Kenyatta Struggles, 595. xcbdg`b`8 $1{0@@"$Q$x;A,u me`b H5 dw Maathais mother, her brother Nderitu, and another member of the family made this critical decision, which would open the doors for Maathai to quality education in Kenya and eventually in the United States, thus introducing her to international networks which were to shape her future. Maathai was of Kikuyu ethnicity. She summarized her experiences at Mount St. Scholastica College in the following manner: My four years at the Mount, and experiences I had both on and off campus, nurtured in me a willingness to listen and learn, to think critically and analytically, and to ask questions. Then she assumed the position of full-time coordinator of the GBM.36. 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. 5. She is the recipient of 15 honorary degrees in science, law, humane letters, and public service, and 50+ awards and recognitions . As a young girl growing up in Kenya, Wangari was surrounded by trees. The intention was to pacify central Kenya and create a favorable apolitical climate for consolidating the interests of settlers and the colonial administration. 36. 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. This article has benefited a great deal from discussions and interviews held toward the end of 2018 and in 2019 with Prof. Wanjiku Kabira, Rev. This was a political maneuver intended to weaken the chairperson role and a calculated strategy to undermine umbrella organizations by the withdrawal of members. Wangari Muta married Mwangi Mathai in 1969. In 2007, the region would explode into postelection violence, something which she had foreseen and tried hard to mitigate by cultivating a culture of peace for almost two decades. Though such encounters in colonial Kenya were often limited, Maathai strived to base these relationships on equality, freedom, dignity, learning, and mobilization in common pursuit of sustainable development. 17. endstream Another volume, The Challenge for Africa (2009), criticized Africas leadership as ineffectual and urged Africans to try to solve their problems without Western assistance. Mathaai was named Wangari at birth after her fathers mother, as was Gikuyu tradition. They returned to Kenya soon after independence. Maathai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. 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. Later Years and Death. 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. I am sure that this honour will now usher in a new beginning with new sensibilities to match. Our school calendar. When I finally learned to read and write, I never stopped, because I could read, I could write and I could rub.9 After a period of attending primary school, it was decided she should join her cousin at St. Cecilias Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school operated by the Mathari Catholic Mission and Consolata Missionary Sisters. Nevertheless, it was not easy balancing bringing up three children, earning a living, carving her identity, as well as navigating through turbulent political waters.29. Maathai is still remembered for her determined and persistent efforts to safeguard Uhuru Park and the Karura Forest for future generations, for her solidarity with mothers of political detainees, as well as her relentless efforts for peace and to end election-related violence in the Rift Valley region and in the country since 1992 when multiparty politics were allowed. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. It was evident that there were no clear ideas on how to bring about change to authoritarian leadership and poor governance in Kenya.38 There was no major political plank that distinguished her from the other Kenyan elites vying to wrestle power from Moi.39 She displayed an emerging Kenyan practice whereby a leader who is successful in one specialized field of activity identifies the next challenge as a venture into elective politics. Maathai had the unique opportunity of going to school when girls in her age group were typically not given the opportunity of doing so. Characteristically, Maathai turned this misfortune into an opportunity which in the final analysis worked for the good of the GBM and her work with the NCWK. The diversity of funding sources was remarkable in winning international support and admirers including young people (for instance, Danish school children), celebrities, NGOs, and bilateral, private foundations and UN agencies.57 This array of support attracted international interest, recognition, and awards, and cushioned the GBM and Maathai against drastic measures that were taken at that time against other civil society organizations and individuals in the country. Interact with and gain some education from the missionaries ( athomi or asomi ) and a calculated strategy to umbrella... Was conferred by the introduction of exotic dairy cows devoted to the well-being and education of their.... 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