INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY- REFLECTION WANGARI MAATHAI

 

Wangari Maathai the Kenyan born African Heroine is best known for her efforts to develop the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots organization that focuses on planting trees to replenish the environment and improve the quality of life. Because of her efforts, Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

Born on first April, 1940 to a humble family in Central Kenya, Wangari was a talented girl and At the age of 11, Maathai moved to St. Cecilia's Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school at the Mathari Catholic Mission in Nyeri. Maathai studied at St. Cecilia's for four years. During this time, she became fluent in English and converted to Catholicism. She was involved with the Legion of Mary, whose members attempted "to serve God by serving fellow human beings. 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. When she completed her studies there in 1956, 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

As the end of East African colonialism approached, Kenyan politicians, such as Tom Mboya, were proposing ways to make education in Western nations available to promising students. John F. Kennedy, then a United States Senator, agreed to fund such a program through the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, initiating what became known as the Kennedy Airlift or Airlift Africa. Maathai became one of some 300 Kenyans selected to study in the United States in September 1960