Remembering the birthday of Africa’s first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize: Wangari Maathai.

 

Wangari Maathai holding a trophy awarded to her by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

Wangari Muta Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
 In the 1970s, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental
organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights.
In 1986, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, and in 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace."
 Maathai was an elected member of Parliament and served as assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005.
 Furthermore she was an Honorary Councillor of the World Future Council. In 2011, Maathai died of complications from ovarian cancer.

She wrote several books including Unbowed: A Memoir, The Green Belt Movement: sharing the approach and the experience

In the memory of her work, we inspire all African women to be agents of  positive change in the today’s world. “African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.”
Wangari Maathai