The Life Of A Prominent Woman

Name

Affiliated Institution

Wangari Mathai

Brief History

Wangari Muta Maathai, as she was named, was born in 1940 within a rural region of a town called Nyeri in Kenya. She attended schools within the area and was able to avoid ethnic ostracism because of the upheavals against colonialism by her tribe, the Kikuyu. During that period, she became quite exemplary within the educational sphere, and her poor background did not deter her from the progress she finally made.

Once she passed her examinations and emerged as the top of her class, she was in luck. A Kenyan firebrand politician named Tom Mboya had negotiated a deal with the then President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy. In this deal, 300 Kenyans were to be airlifted to the country to further their education, and Maathai became part of it, for she was exemplary (Maathai, 2003).

While in The States, she majored in biology at the Mount St.Scholastica College and proceeded to get her degree in 1964. Then after that, she studied for her master’s degree in biology at the University of Pittsburgh. After a few years, she studied for her Ph.D. at the University of Nairobi. She became the first woman in East and Central Africa to have a Doctorate.

Later on, in the future, she became instrumental in carving out the environmental movement called the Green Belt Movement in Kenya and suffered under the hands of a tyrannical government. Her efforts were internationally acknowledged, and she rose to prominence for her active role in the promotion of environmental preservation. In the year 2004, she was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize due to the activism and dynamic highlighting of the issues ailing the environment.

She died at the age of 71 due to her battle with ovarian cancer. The world is on its knees due to the looming danger that environmental change and climate change is threatening. Wangari Maathai is particularly a revolutionary in environmental preservation because she was consistently vocal about this at a time when it seemed almost impossible. To make matters better, she was able to do this in an underdeveloped third world country that still actively harbored misogynistic views and eventually moved the masses to the initiative. Kenya got put on the spot for her efforts. The country had to conform to the blueprint that she presented to the country and the world.

Education Experience

The financial situation of the family was pitiful at the time, and it led them to do a lot that may be considered the norm for people in a dire financial state. Their family was economic migrants, for they moved from one to another to sustain a livelihood. At the age of eight, she enrolled in the primary school at her home. Late enrollment did not serve as a hurdle, though, for she still achieved a lot within her life that many people may not be able to make.

She was in luck for the community that surrounded her knew the value of education. It ensured that their children had a quality education according to the standards of the time. Education was the key to success, and everybody had to be involved in the improvement of their family members’ lives.

Ethnic upheaval against the British empire led members of her tribe, the Kikuyu, to suffer under scrutiny and concentration camps. Fortunately, education served as the shield that prevented her from undergoing suffering under the hands of the British. Every time she got to a new level of education, she was bold enough to stand out and show the grit she had to achieve all those academic accolades.

The general mood towards education within her immediate society played a significant role in ensuring that she got nothing but the best and was pushed to the top by her knowledge of the value of education. Finally, she stood tall as a giant, and many stood on her shoulders for support in the betterment of life and universal welfare.

Obstacles

Once Wangari Maathai took a more in-depth look into the issues that the society was facing, she realized that part of it was in line with what was happening to the environment. Following the rationality that she established over the ages, she initiated the Green Belt Movement in 1977.

Rising environmental uncertainty such as drying of streams and food insecurity made her realize that a lot of people were about to suffer for their inability to make any change. A quick reevaluation of the stance of the society on communal values made it evident where the problem was. Traditional communalism had eroded, and a more capitalistic ideal had emerged as the standard. By seeing this, she was able to conclude that abandonment of societal roles had become rife and, in its wake, it left environment degradation, disempowerment, and a disenfranchised section of society.

The Green Belt Movement also concluded that the people who were supposed to guard the citizens against the hardships of life were responsible for the strife (Muthuki, 2006). The politicians of the time were not accountable for their actions and mostly stole the useful land and even went as far as to allow the transformation of forests into arable land.

Wangari Maathai rose as a fierce political speaker for change and put her life at risk because it was a time of unexplainable extrajudicial killings. As the political sphere only got dimmer in the nation, she got bolder and never feared a thing in her way. The government gave in to her demands on many occasions. She stood in the frontline as a soldier against the dim future the government wanted to grant to its people. A bold move of this kind on multiple occasions made her a force to be reckoned with and put her at odds with the oppressors but gave her international recognition.

Discoveries And Work

What many would term as her most significant discovery is the realization that deforestation could potentially get reversed by the collective planting of trees by women across the nation. The initiative was one of the critical pillars of the formation of the Green Belt Movement. It was not her intention to put men down by doing this but to uplift women as builders of society and custodians of the health of the environment. Because of that central belief, by 2004, an idea that was scorned and laughed at had made the country 30 million trees more productive.

Wangari Maathai is known for many things among Kenyans and international circles for her numerous achievements. The one thing that most stood out was her ability to defend the ideals of communalism and a cleaner and healthier environment. She took on an enemy more powerful than her and emerged victoriously. Her ideal genius got revered on an international scale, and it won hearts for the many masses she had helped were insured from another generation of environmental degradation and suffering (Lappé, 2004). She was an adamant believer of the power of women if they chose to do things as they intended and pleased (Presbey, 2013). A belief is not only useful but is instrumental in carving out a way forward.

For her efforts, history has marked her in indelible ink as a woman of power.

References

Muthuki, J. (2006). Challenging patriarchal structures: Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt movement in Kenya. Agenda, 20(69), 83-91.

Maathai, W. (2003). The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the approach and the experience. Lantern Books.

Presbey, G. M. (2013). Women’s empowerment: the insights of Wangari Maathai. Journal of Global Ethics, 9(3), 277-292.

Lappé, A., & Lappé, F. M. (2004). The Genius of Wangari Maathai. Alternatives Journal, 30(5), 30-31.