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{"id":3788,"date":"2020-12-03T12:42:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T12:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doerlife.com\/?p=3788"},"modified":"2020-12-03T12:42:55","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T12:42:55","slug":"wangari-maathai-1st-african-woman-to-win-nobel-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doerlife.com\/wangari-maathai-1st-african-woman-to-win-nobel-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Wangari Maathai – 1st African Woman to win Nobel Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The first ever African woman from Kenya to win the Nobel Prize in 2004 was Wangari Maathai. The recognition and Nobel Prize was conferred to her “for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” Her life was dedicated to the African environment, and to the political scene in Kenya. Wangari Maathai was Kenya\u2019s elected Member of Parliament who served as assistant minister for Environment and Natural resources, in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005. She was also the Honorary Councillor of the World Future Council. But her most notaable work was the Green Belt Movement that she founded in 1977. To date, the foundation has successfully planted over 51 million trees and helped women to work their way out of poverty. Wangari Maathai is a renowned Kenyan environmental, social, and political activist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Academically inclined<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born on April 1, 1940, in Nyeri, Wangari grew up in Kenya which was a British colony then. Her father worked as a tenant farmer and her mother was a housewife. She began schooling, at the age of eight, joining her brothers at Ihithe Primary School. Seeing her interest in studies, which was uncommon in girls at that time, an 11-year-old Maathai was sent off to the St. Cecilia’s Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school run by the Mathari Catholic Mission of Nyeri From there she went on to study at the Loreto Girls’ High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1960, Maathai was one of 300 students selected by the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation to go to college in the United States. She attended the Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas, majoring in Biology in 1964. In 1966, she completed a Masters in Biology from the University of Pittsburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Returning to Kenya, Maathai continued her academic aspirations. She studied veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi. In 1971, she became Kenya\u2019s first woman in East Africa to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Nairobi. Later in 1976, Maathai joined the university’s faculty and became the first woman to chair a university department in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides joining the University\u2019s faculty, around the same time she started to get more involved in other civic organizations. She became a member of the Kenya Association of University Women. Then in 1973, she became the Director of the Nairobi branch of the Kenya Red Cross Society. Then, in 1974, when the Environment Liaison Centre was founded, Maathai was invited to be a member of the board, which she accepted and in fact in the later years headed its board chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n