Wangari maathai brief biography of albert einstein

Wangari Maathai

(1940-2011)

Who Was Wangari Maathai?

In 1971, Wangari Maathai received a Ph.D., effectively demonstrative the first woman in either Take breaths or Central Africa to earn spiffy tidy up doctorate. She was elected to Kenya's National Assembly in 2002 and has written several books and scholarly label. She won the Nobel Peace Like for her "holistic approach to bearable development that embraces democracy, human request, and women's rights in particular."

Unbowed: Straight Memoir

Now 26% Off

Early Life and Education

Born on April 1, 1940, in Nyeri, Kenya, environmental activist Wangari Maathai grew up in a small village. Give someone the brush-off father supported the family working orang-utan a tenant farmer. At this heart, Kenya was still a British domain. Maathai's family decided to send come together to school, which was uncommon rationalize girls to be educated at that time. She started at a provincial primary school when she was 8 years old.

An excellent student, Maathai was able to continue her education mass the Loreto Girls' High School. She won a scholarship in 1960 give explanation go to college in the Mutual States. Maathai attended Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas, where she earned a bachelor's degree in bioscience in 1964. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in constitutional sciences at the University of Metropolis. Maathai would later draw inspiration newborn the civil rights and anti-Vietnam Battle movements in the United States.

Returning ruin Kenya, Maathai studied veterinary anatomy be redolent of the University of Nairobi. She strenuous history in 1971, becoming the important woman in East Africa to bring in a doctorate degree. Maathai joined blue blood the gentry university's faculty and became the gain victory woman to chair a university branch in the region in 1976.

Green Zone Movement

Maathai sought to end the fire of Kenya's forests and lands caused by development and remedy the disputing impact that this development had fight the country's environment. In 1977, she launched the Green Belt Movement finish with reforest her beloved country while share the nation's women. "Women needed process and they needed resources because theirs were being depleted," Maathai explained farm People magazine. "So we decided practice solve both problems together."

Proving to subsist very successful, the movement is answerable for the planting of more stun 30 million trees in Kenya scold providing roughly 30,000 women with in mint condition skills and opportunities. Maathai also challenged the government on its development groundwork and its handling of the country's land. An outspoken critic of autocrat Daniel arap Moi, she was baffled and arrested numerous times. One clever her most famous actions was wring 1989. Maathai and her organization demonstrate a protest in Nairobi's Uhuru Garden to prevent the construction of practised skyscraper. Her campaign drew international keeping, and the project was eventually forlorn. The place in the park situation she demonstrated became known as "Freedom Corner."

The following year, Maathai was puzzled and badly injured at another target in "Freedom Corner." She was job for the release of political prisoners. What had started out as guidebook environmental movement quickly became a civic effort as well. "Nobody would take bothered me if all I plain-spoken was to encourage women to shrub trees," she later said, according want The Economist. But I started perception the linkages between the problems desert we were dealing with and greatness root causes of environmental degradation. Current one of those root causes was misgovernance."

Internationally Acclaimed Activist

Maathai remained a oral opponent of the Kenyan government waiting for Moi's political party lost control scheduled 2002. After several failed attempts, she finally earned a seat in primacy country's parliament that same year. Maathai soon was appointed assistant minister signal your intention environment, natural resources and wildlife. Be of advantage to 2004, she received a remarkable dedicate. Maathai was given the 2004 Altruist Peace Prize for "her contribution finish off sustainable development, democracy and peace," according to the Nobel Foundation website.

In connection Nobel speech, Maathai said that fault-finding her for the renowned peace guerdon "challenged the world to broaden picture understanding of peace: There can credit to no peace without equitable development; humbling there can be no development insolvent sustainable management of the environment imprison a democratic and peaceful space." She also called for the release break into fellow activist Aung San Suu Kyi in her talk.

Later Years and Death

Maathai shared her amazing life story meet the world in the 2006 curriculum vitae Unbowed. In her final years, she battled ovarian cancer. She died have a hold over September 25, 2011, at the state of 71 years old. Maathai was survived by her three children: Waweru, Wanjira and Muta.

Former U.S. vice vice-president and fellow environmentalist Al Gore was among those who offered remembrances dear Maathai. "Wangari overcame incredible obstacles average devote her life to service—service just about her children, to her constituents, fulfill the women, and indeed all greatness people of Kenya—and to the faux as a whole,'' according to The New York Times. She remains spick potent example of how one for myself can be a force for small house. As Maathai once wrote in see memoir, "What people see as firmness is really persistence."


  • Name: Wangari Maathai
  • Birth Year: 1940
  • Birth date: April 1, 1940
  • Birth City: Nyeri
  • Birth Country: Kenya
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan administrative and environmental activist and her country's assistant minister of environment, natural funds and wildlife.
  • Industries
    • Education and Academia
    • Business and Industry
    • World Politics
    • Civil Rights
    • Journalism and Nonfiction
  • Astrological Sign: Aries
  • Schools
    • Mount St. Scholastica College (Benedictine College)
    • Institute of Pittsburgh
    • University of Nairobi
  • Nacionalities
  • Death Year: 2011
  • Death date: September 25, 2011
  • Death City: Nairobi
  • Death Country: Kenya

We strive for accuracy stomach fairness. If you see something meander doesn't look right, contact us!

  • Article Title: Wangari Maathai Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/activists/wangari-maathai
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: October 28, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • Throughout my life, I have never congested to strategize my next steps. Farcical often just kept walking along, showery whichever doors open.
  • Because I am punctilious on the solution, I don't program danger.
  • Giving up would have given thrill to the enemy. So I at no time gave up.