Wangari Maathai, First African Woman to Win Nobel Peace Prize, Dies
Today, I’m over at Gender Across Borders talking about Wangari Maathai, the first African Woman to Win the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness,” she said, “to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.
Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, has died of ovarian cancer at the age of 71 in Nairobi, Kenya yesterday. Dr. Maathai’s work began as an environmentalist in Kenya who had a mission to reforest her country. She did so by paying poor women a little money to plant trees, and went on to found the organization The Green Belt in 1977. The Green Belt Movement succeeded in planting more than 30 million trees in Africa, helping to reduce erosion. The mission of the Green Belt Movement was not only to plant trees in Kenya, but also to create jobs for women; reportedly, the organization helped almost 900,000 women in Africa. In this way, Dr. Maathai was not only an environmentalist, but a feminist and human rights advocate as well.
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