WOMAN OF OUR TIME!
She has a powerful message not only for African women, but for all mankind in the face of environmental threat:
"The environment is very important ... because when we destroy our resources, they become scarce and we fight over that."
"Many of the war being fought are over resources. Here in Africa we have minerals, we have land, we have timber. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace."
Wangari Maathai was born in 1940 in Nyeri, Kenya. She was one of the few East African women to get a higher education. She was the first to earn a doctorate and then to become Head of a Kenyan University Department.
In 1977 she started the Green Belt Movement. She began with some trees in her backyard and encouraged women to plant them for firewood and to stop soil erosion. Since then the movement has planted 30 million tree.
She opposed many of the policies of the Kenyan government that damage the environment. She was imprisoned and beaten by the police. But when she stood for government she was elected with 98% of the votes.
In 2003, she became Deputy Minister of the Environment.
When she was asked why she did all this, she replied;
"I don't know really why I care so much, I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what would call the God in me. All of us have a God in us, and that God us the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet."
She has always spoken up for women:
"African women in general need to know that it is OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way the are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence."
"Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve."
She has three children herself but her husband divorced her many years ago because she was "too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn and too hard to control".
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