Topic: Kenya's Wangari Maathai dies

Wangari Maathai has passed away.

The first ever female Nobel laureate from Africa, environmental activist and former MP for Tetu passed away last night at Nairobi Hospital of cancer-related complications at the age of 71.

Maathai was also a human rights activist who led a group of mothers and other women to strip naked in a bid for force the KANU government to release political prisoners at what is now known as freedom corner at Uhuru Park.

Koigi Wa Wamwere, one of the detainees at the time says its is a terrible loss.

Wangari Maathai died at the age of 71 after a long struggle with cancer.
She was a passionate environmentalist who founded the Green Belt Movement, an organization that led the planting of trees and increased awareness of environmental conservation in Kenya. In 1971 Wangari Maathai became the first East African woman to receive a Ph.D – a Doctorate in anatomy from the University of Nairobi.Wangari was also a passionate advocate for women’s rights and became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace” in 2004.
Wangari Maathai was elected as a member of Parliament and served as the Kenya Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources between January 2003 and November 2005.
Barack Obama, who was then a United States Senator met Wangari Maathai in 2006 on a visit to his father’s homeland, Kenya. Wangari Mathai who studied at the Benedictine College and later at the University of Pitsburgh was on the same scholarship programme as Obama’s father. A tree planted by both to mark their meeting and to highlight environmentalism can be found at Kenya’s Uhuru Park in Nairobi.
Maathai’s last post was as a member of the Advisory Board of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA).

“Maathai stood up courageously against the former oppressive regime in Kenya. Her unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression—nationally and internationally. She has served as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to better their situation.”

—The Norwegian Nobel Committee, in a statement announcing her as the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner

“I Will Be A Hummingbird” | Wangari Maathai – R.I.P

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What a sad day for Kenya and the all African! God rest her soul in eternal Peace.

R. I. P.

Kwa wakenya walivyo, huyu mama angekuwa Mtanzania - heading zao zingekuwa East African Prof. Wangari Maathae has died..... R.I.P. You're missed and you'll be missed. The universe and all in and on will surely miss you.

RIP Wangari

Prof. Wangari wa Mathaai remains a true heroine to all Kenyan and African people. Here are some old photos of her.

Independent Lens . TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai . Timeline | PBS

RIP

R.I.P Mom, surely we will miss

R.I.P. Mama Wangari....

‎"It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees." Wangari Maathai - R.I.P.
Like she would say: The work must go on !!!!

R.I.P Wangari Mathai.

Poleni Sana wakenya mmepoteza Jembe la ukweli.

Pumzika kwa amani wangari!

R.I.P Wangari Mathai.

A true legend- RIP

‎"It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees." Wangari Maathai

Afrika Masharika tumempoteza mtu muhimu sana katika masuala ya siasa hasa katika maamuzi kuhusu utunzaji wa mazingira.

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The late Prof Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. Photo: File/Standard
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By CYRUS OMBATI
The first ever female Nobel laureate from Africa, environmental activist and former MP for Tetu died Sunday night at Nairobi Hospital out of what friends said was cancer-related complications at the age of 71.
She died at 10 pm on Sunday and the family has been informed, an official at the hospital said.
Maathai was also a human rights activist who fought for democracy. She had been admitted to the hospital a week earlier.

Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai

She was educated in the United States at Mount St Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In the 1970s, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights.In 1984, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, and in 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”
Maathai was an elected Member of Parliament and served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005.
She once led a group of mothers and other women to strip naked in a bid for force the KANU government to release political prisoners at what is now known as freedom corner at Uhuru Park. Koigi Wa Wamwere, one of the detainees at the time says its is a terrible loss.
Maathai was born in the village of Ihithe, Nyeri District, on 1 April 1940. Around 1943, Maathai's family relocated to a white-owned farm in the Rift Valley, near Nakuru, where her father worked but late in 1947, she returned to Ihithe with her mother.
When she completed her secondary studies in 1956 she was rated first in her class, and was granted admission to the only Catholic high school for girls in Kenya, Loreto High School Limuru in Limuru.
After graduating from Loreto-Limuru in 1959, she planned to attend the University of East Africa in Kampala, Uganda. However, the end of the colonial period of East Africa was nearing, and Kenyan politicians, such as Tom Mboya, were proposing ways to make education in Western nations available to promising students.
JohnF.Kennedy, then a United States Senator, agreed to fund such a program through the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, initiating what became known as the Kennedy Airlift or Airlift Africa. Maathai became one of about 300 Kenyans chosen to study at American universities in September 1960.
Maathai received a scholarship to study at Mount St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College), in Atchison, Kansas.
At Mount St. Scholastica, she majored in biology, with minors in chemistry and German.
After receiving her bachelor of science degree in 1964, she was accepted to the University of Pittsburgh to study for a master's degree in biology. Her graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh were funded by the Africa-America Institute.
In January 1966, Maathai completed her studies at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a Master of Science in Biological Sciences and was appointed to a position as research assistant to a professor of zoology at University College of Nairobi.
When she arrived at the University of Nairobi for her new job as a research assistant to the professor of zoology, she was informed that her job had been given to someone else.
After a job search lasting two months, Professor Reinhold Hofmann, from the University of Giessen in Germany, offered her a job as a research assistant in the microanatomy section of the newly established Department of Veterinary Anatomy in the School of veterinary medicine at University College of Nairobi.
In April 1966, she met Mwangi Mathai who would later become her husband.
In 1971, she became the first Eastern African woman to receive a Ph.D., when she was granted a Doctorate of Anatomy from the University College of Nairobi, which became the University of Nairobi the following year.
She continued to teach at the university, becoming a senior lecturer in Anatomy in 1974, chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy in 1976 and associate professor in 1977.
In addition to her work at the University of Nairobi, Maathai became involved in a number of civic organizations in the early 1970s.
In 1977 her husband, Mwangi Mathai, left her. After a lengthy separation, in 1979 he sued for divorce, saying she was too strong-minded for a woman and that he was unable to control her.
The judge in the divorce case agreed with the husband. Shortly after the trial, in an interview with Viva magazine, Maathai referred to the judge as either incompetent or corrupt.
The interview angered the judge, and she was charged with contempt of court, found guilty, and sentenced to six months in jail.
After three days in Lang'ata Women's Prison in Nairobi, her lawyer formulated a statement, which the court found sufficient for her release. Shortly after the divorce, her former husband sent a letter via his lawyer demanding that Maathai drop his surname. In defiance, she chose to add an extra "a" instead.
The divorce had been costly, and with lawyers' fees and the loss of her husband's income, Maathai found it difficult to provide for herself and her children on her university wages alone.
In 2001, the government was again planning to take public forestland and give it to its supporters. While protesting the land-grab and collecting petition signatures on March 7, 2001, in Wang'uru village near Mount Kenya, Maathai was again arrested. The following day, following international and popular protest at her arrest, she was released without being charged. On July 7, 2001, shortly after planting trees at Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park in Nairobi to commemorate Saba Saba Day, Maathai was again arrested. Later that evening, she was again released without being charged.
In January 2002, Maathai returned to teaching as the Dorothy McCluskey Visiting Fellow for Conservation at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She remained there until June 2002, teaching a course on sustainable development focused on the work of the Green Belt Movement.
Election to parliament
Upon her return to Kenya, Maathai again campaigned for parliament in the 2002 elections, this time as a candidate of the National Rainbow Coalition, the umbrella organization which finally united the opposition. On December 22, 2002, the Rainbow Coalition defeated the ruling party Kenya African National Union, and in her constituency Maathai won.
In January 2003, she was appointed Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources and served in that capacity until November 2005.
She founded the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya in 2003 to allow candidates to run on a platform of conservation as embodied by the Green Belt Movement. It is a member of the Federation of Green Parties of Africa and the Global Greens.
On 8 October 2004, Maathai received a cell phone call from the Norwegian ambassador to Kenya, telling her to keep the line open for a call from Oslo. Shortly afterward Maathai received a call from Ole Danbolt Mjos, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. He informed her that she was the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.
Maathai was defeated in the Party of National Unity's primary elections for its parliamentary candidates in November 2007 and chose to instead run as the candidate of a smaller party.
She was, however, defeated in the December 2007 parliamentary election.
Maathai currently served on the Eminent Advisory Board of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA).

RIP Professor Wangari Maathai...You showed us the way!! You will be missed. God rest her soul in eternal peace. Amen!!

thanks for the details ruta...i ddnt know she was divorced. arnt most successiful women divorced or widowed? am just saying..