"It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees."
— Wangari Maathai, 1940-2011
In 1971, Wangari Maathai was having a busy time of things, she had just received her PhD, the first East African woman to ever do so. She also just gave birth to her first daughter, Wanjira, by her husband, aspiring Parliamentarian Mwangi Mathai. It was a good moment to take stock of what she saw around her.
What she saw around her over the next few years was pretty upsetting, she saw women who were disempowered, an environment that was demolished, and a society that left most families deeply and dangerously impoverished. Her response to this went down to the roots of all three issues.
She organized women to plant trees. Millions of trees.
By doing so, she created forests, and a social movement, out of her own imagination and force of will, leaving legacies that will continue to help people for generations after her recent passing yesterday, from cancer, at age 71...
I don't have enough time this morning to do proper justice to her life. Actually, no amount of writing would ever do proper justice to her life. Plant trees.
Her path in cultivating the Greenbelt would also take her into fighting government corruption, eventually becoming a member of Parliament. In recognition of her work, she won the Right Livelihood Award, and became the first environmental activist to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
I'll let her share her ideas in own words, here in a 2007 interview:
So, as we say good bye to a woman who embodied and practiced the spiritual, social approach to politics that I believe we need so much more of, I'll leave you with the most direct, most obvious way to properly honor her memory.
Find the root of the suffering you find around you, and get together with other people to work on it. In the meantime, plant trees.