Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Kenya in 1940. As the eldest daughter of six children, Maathai might have been expected to forgo education in order to help run the household. But her parents encouraged their daughter's schooling and in the early 60s she won a scholarship to Mount St Scholastica College in Kansas. In 1964 she graduated in Biological Science and remained in America to study for her Master of Science. When she returned to Africa to teach and to study at the University of Nairobi, she became the first woman in East and Central Africa to obtain a doctorate. She went on to become the first woman to hold an associate professorship at the university and the first woman to chair a department.
But it was whilst working with the National Council of Women of Kenya that Wangari's simple idea of encouraging women to plant and tend trees really took hold. Thousands of women benefitted from the employment - as did the environment. The Green Belt Movement was launched in 1977, and in 1986 a Green Belt network was established across Africa. GMB aimed to do more than grow trees, it wanted to show people that they could be responsible for their own lives.
Wangari is active on many issues, fighting tirelessly for democracy, human rights as well as the environment. She has received many awards and has been honoured in many countries and by many institutions, but it is her work with the Green Belt Movement that brought her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 'for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace'. She is the first African woman to receive the prize.
