KS2 History: Wangari Maathai

Hello! I am very pleased to meet you! My name is Wangari Maathai.

In my country of Kenya, I became famous for helping groups of local people, and protecting the environment.

That’s not how everybody saw it, oh no! Many people in the government said I got famous just for causing trouble!

That’s why they threw me in prison,

After people asked me – ‘Wangari, weren’t you scared?’ You know… I was scared. All the time!

But I couldn’t just give up… because what we were doing was far too important!

I was born in the mountains of Kenya in the year 1940. When I was 11 years old, I went to a Catholic boarding school. The teachers there taught me two truly important things. They taught me to study hard and always keep learning about the world! And they taught me their belief - that to serve God, you must serve your fellow human beings.

After school, I had the chance to go to the USA, and study biology and chemistry.

Then I came back to Kenya. I was a qualified scientist, specialising in animals! But I hadn’t forgotten the lessons the nuns had taught to me.

I started working with charities, and talking to people who lived in the countryside.

All the women I talked to had the same problems – not enough fuel to cook with, not enough food, and no good way to make money. Their lives were hard!

And I saw the land had changed.

Big companies who sell wood had chopped down so many trees that the land was drying out and the soil was getting poorer.

And I thought, there’s only one thing to do here - we must plant trees!

You see, in the climate of Kenya, trees grow quickly. In just ten years, a tree can be giving families valuable food and firewood.

But just planting a few trees here, and a few there, was not going to make much difference… We needed trees all around!

And so I became very busy, helping to set up growing spaces for saplings, and helping people to organise giving them out, planting them, and looking after them.

But not everybody liked what we were doing… Oh no!

Many people in the government wanted to sell the land, and they certainly didn’t want me telling them that things should be done differently!

In Kenya, the 1980s were a difficult time.

The government was trying to control everything. But many ordinary people protested against them. And I helped organise a lot of protests! And I set up a whole organisation for tree planting, called the Green Belt Movement.

The government tried to stop me. And they put me in prison many times!

But I wouldn’t give up! And things started changing for the better.

I tried to get elected to parliament - and people voted for me! I became a Member of Parliament!

People outside Kenya started hearing about me too. I even got awarded a Nobel Peace Prize!

But do you know the real prize for me? The trees that we started planting when I was younger… I got to see them grow, and become mature trees. Now life is so much better for the people who live here!

So remember – it’s amazing what you can do just by having an idea… and, yes - making some noise!