Wangarĩ Muta Maathai was born in the village of Ihithe, Nyeri District, in the central highlands of the colony of Kenya on April 1 1940. She is from the Kikuyu family, the most populous ethnic group in Kenya, after spending years in the area for several generations. Maathai’s family relocated to a White-owned farm in the Rift Valley around 1943, near Nakuru, where her father had found work. Later, in 1947, she returned with her mother to Ihithe, as two of her brothers were attending primary school in the village, and there was no schooling available on the farm where her father worked. However, her father remained at the farm. When Maathai clocked eight, she joined her brothers at Ihithe Primary School.
The Early Life of Wangarĩ Muta Maathai
Maathai moved to St. Cecilia’s Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school at the Mathari Catholic Mission in Nyeri, at 11, where she studied for four years. During this period, she became fluent in English and converted to Catholicism. She got involved with the Legion of Mary, whose members attempted “to serve God by serving fellow human beings.” While studying at St. Cecilia’s, she was sheltered from the ongoing Mau Mau uprising, which forced her mother to move from their homestead to an emergency village in Ihithe. 1956, when she completed her studies, she was rated first in her class and was granted admission to the only Catholic high school for girls in Kenya, Loreto High School in Limuru.
At the end of colonialism in East Africa, Kenyan politicians, such as Tom Mboya, proposed means to make education available to promising students in Western nations. The program was funded by John F. Kennedy, a then United States Senator, who agreed to finance the program through the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, birthing what became known as the Kennedy Airlift or Airlift Africa. Maathai was one of about 300 Kenyans selected to study in the United States in September 1960.
Maathai was awarded a scholarship to study at Mount St. Scholastica College (now known as Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas, where she majored in biology with minors in chemistry and German. She received her bachelor of science degree in 1964 and proceeded to the University of Pittsburgh for a master’s degree in biology, which the Africa-America Institute funded. While studying in Pittsburgh, she had a firsthand experience of environmental restoration at a time when local environmentalists pushed to rid the city of air pollution. Maathai received her MSc in biological sciences in January 1966 and was appointed to a position as a research assistant to a professor of zoology at the University College of Nairobi.
On her return to Kenya, Maathai dropped her forename, preferring to be called by her birth name, Wangarĩ Muta. On her resumption at the university office to start her new job, she was informed that the job had been assigned to someone else. Maathai sensed this was a result of gender and tribal bias. At the end of a two-month job search, Professor Reinhold Hofmann, from the University of Giessen in Germany, offered her a job in the microanatomy section of the newly established Department of Veterinary Anatomy in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University College of Nairobi as a research assistant. In April 1966, she met Mwangi Mathai, a Kenyan who had studied in America and would later become her husband. During this period, she rented a small shop in the city and established a general store where her sisters worked. At the urging of Professor Hofmann in 1967, she travelled to the University of Giessen in Germany to acquire a doctorate. She studied both at Giessen and the University of Munich.
She returned to Nairobi in the spring of 1969 to continue her studies at the University College of Nairobi as an assistant lecturer. Later that year, she married Mwangi Mathai and became pregnant with her first child. Her husband went into politics and campaigned for a seat in Parliament but narrowly lost. During the period of the election, Tom Mboya, who had been instrumental in founding the program which sent her overseas, was assassinated. This led to the productive end of multi-party democracy in Kenya by President Kenyatta. Her first son, Waweru, was also born during this period. She became the first Eastern African woman to receive a PhD, her doctorate in veterinary anatomy in 1971, from the University College of Nairobi, later renamed the University of Nairobi the following year. She did her dissertation on the development and differentiation of gonads in bovines. In December 1971, her daughter, Wanjira, was born.
Journey into Politics
Shortly after the divorce in 1979, Maathai ran for the position of chairperson of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). This umbrella organisation consisted of many women’s organisations in the country. She lost this election by three votes but was favoured as vice-chairman. Maathai again ran for chairman of the NCWK the following year and won unopposed despite perceived slights from the government. She continued to be reelected to serve as chairman of the organisation every year until she retired in 1987. In 1982, Maathai decided to campaign for the parliamentary seat in her home region of Nyeri. As stipulated in the constitution, she resigned from her position with the University of Nairobi to campaign for office. The courts disqualified her over eligibility issues, which Maathai believed false and illegal. When she requested to have her job back, she was denied. She was later evicted from the university housing because she was no longer a staff member.
However, Maathai moved into a tiny home she had purchased years before and focused on the NCWK while she searched for employment. During her activities through the NCWK, she was approached by Wilhelm Elsrud, executive director of the Norwegian Forestry Society, who wished to partner with the Green Belt Movement and offered her the coordinator position. Maathai poured her efforts into the Green Belt Movement and got grants known as “seed money” from the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Women. The UN held the third global women’s conference in Nairobi. Maathai arranged seminars and presentations at the conference to raise awareness about the Green Belt Movement’s work in Kenya. The meeting helped to generate funding for the Green Belt Movement and led to the movement’s establishing itself outside Kenya. Later on, the government of Kenya demanded that the Green Belt Movement separate from the NCWK, believing the latter should focus solely on women’s issues, not the environment. Maathai stepped down as chairman of the NCWK in 1987 to concentrate on the newly separate non-governmental organisation.
Wangarĩ Maathai was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”. On October 8, she got a call from Ole Danbolt Mjos, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, informing her of the news, making her the first African woman and environmentalist to win the prize. Maathai stood up boldly against the former oppressive regime in Kenya, which drew attention to political oppression, nationally and internationally. She was instrumental in the many fights for democratic rights and constantly encouraged women to improve their situation.
Awards and Honours
Maathai was elected the first president of the African Union’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council on 28 March 2005; she was also appointed a goodwill ambassador for an initiative to protect the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem. 2006, she was one of the eight flag-bearers at the 2006 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. She was awarded an honorary doctorate and gave the commencement address at Connecticut College on 21 May 2006. She backed the International Year of Deserts and Desertification program. In November 2006, she spearheaded the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign. Maathai was also one of the founders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, along with sister Nobel Peace laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire, which was an initiative to help strengthen the work done in support of women’s rights around the world. Until she died in 2011, Maathai served on the Eminent Advisory Board of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA).
Death and Legacy
On 25 September 2011, Wangarĩ Maathai died of complications arising from ovarian cancer while receiving treatment at a Nairobi hospital. She was buried at the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies in Nairobi. In 2012, Wangarĩ Gardens opened in Washington, DC. The garden is a 2.7-acre community garden project for residents, comprising over 55 garden allotments. This community garden is an honour to the legacy of Wangarĩ Maathai and her mission for community engagement and environmental protection. The Wangarĩ Gardens has no direct affiliation with the Green Belt Movement or the Wangarĩ Maathai Foundation but was inspired by Wangarĩ Maathai and her work and passion for the environment. In 2014, her Mount St. Scholastica classmates and Benedictine College unveiled a statue of the Nobel laureate at her alma mater’s Atchison, Kansas campus, at what would have been her 50-year reunion. Later, in October 2016, Forest Road in Nairobi was renamed Wangarĩ Maathai Road to appreciate her efforts to oppose several attempts to degrade forests and public parks through the Green Belt Movement. The 2016 documentary Innsaei: The Power of Intuition was dedicated to her memory.