Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Wangari Maathai
The holistic approach to sustainable development that Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement embodies embraces human rights and women’s right in particular. Her tree planting campaign empowered more than 300,000 women to plant more than 51 million trees, generating income for the rural women participants and promoting environmental consciousness in her native Kenya.
An accomplished scholar and a tireless political and environmental activist she was the first African woman to receive a Nobel prize.
Born 1940, Kenya
Books and resources:
- Maathai, “Unbowed: A Memoir”, 2006
- Maathai, “The Challenge for Africa”,2010
- Maathai, “Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World”, 2010 Musila, Wangari Maathai’s Registers of Freedom, 2020