Professor and Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai. Maathai is the founder of the Green Party of Kenya, a Green parliamentarian, and initiator of the Green Belt Movement.
Photo Credit: Mia MacDonald
Even before winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Dr. Wangari Maathai was well known to Greens around the world. In 1976 she founded the Greenbelt Movement –a program to support the economic empowerment of women through a program to plant trees. The Greenbelt Movement has successfully branched out to other countries in Africa and serves as an exemplar for ecologically sustainable, community driven economic development, providing income to millions of people.
Dr Maathai was a key participant in Kenya's democracy movement in the 1980s and 1990s. She was a vocal critic of President Daniel arap Moi. Dr. Mathaai was elected to parliament in 2002, during the country's first fair elections, and was subsequently appointed to the cabinet as Assistant Minister of the Environment.
In 2003 Dr. Maathai founded the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya. She continues to serve, as a Green, in what is known as Kenya's "Rainbow Coalition" government as the ranking Green woman officeholder in Africa.
Upon awarding Wangari Maathai the Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee said: "She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women's rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally."
The Green Party is offering a signed copy of Dr. Wangari Maathai's new memoir "Unbowed" to anyone contributing $250 or more. As Greens in the US, we draw inspiration from the work of Dr. Maathai. Think globally, act locally. Build a sustainable, peaceful world by helping the Green Party of the United States build democracy in your community.
donate online
Use your credit card to donate online (secure server) for this special offer and we'll mail you a signed copy of Unbowed, By Wanagari Maathai.
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Wangari Maathai will be speaking at the university of buffalo on friday feb 2. http://wings.buffalo.edu/events/speakers
Wangari Maathai
2004 Nobel Peace Laureate and Green Belt Movement founder
Friday, February 2, 2007, 8PM, UB Center for the Arts
Named by Time magazine as "one of the 100 most influential people in the world", Wangari Maathai is a champion for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation.
Receiving a PhD from the University of Nairobi in 1971, she was the first woman in Central and East Africa to earn a doctorate. While chairing the National Council of Women in Kenya during much of the 1980's, she piloted her tree-planting concept. She went on to expand her vision by founding the Green Belt Movement, a broad-based grass roots organization focused on empowering people to improve their community's quality of life by protecting their environment. Working with women's groups, GBM has facilitated the planting of 30 million trees in Kenya.
The Movement's Pan-African Network has trained individuals from throughout the continent who have then returned to their own countries to share GBM's approach to community building, conservation and development of tree-planting programs. Initiatives modeled after GBM's concepts have been successfully established in Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
In 1998, Dr. Maathai joined the Jubilee 2000 Campaign. As co-chair of the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign, she has played a lead role in seeking the cancellation of overwhelming and unpayable debts of poor countries in Africa. She has also served on the UN Commission for Global Governance and the Commission on the Future. In 2002, Dr. Maathai was elected to Kenya's Parliament and appointed Assistant Minister for the Environment.
A tireless voice for democratic rights and environmental conservation, Dr. Maathai is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, France's highest honor - the Legion d'Honneur, and the Disney Conservation Fund Award.
For more info on Wangari Maathai, please visit:
http://www.wangarimaathai.com
http://greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=3
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2004/maathai-bio.html
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