Word: maathai
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...Kenya's Maathai is facing trial on charges of publishing "a false rumor which is likely to alarm the public," namely that the Moi government was planning to hand over power to the military. Last month, during a protest by fasting mothers of political prisoners, she was tear-gassed and clubbed unconscious by police. In January more than 100 police officers swarmed her house in Nairobi and arrested her. A night in jail with no mattress or blankets so aggravated her rheumatism that she was hospitalized for several days after her release...
...Kenya's leading environmentalist, Wangari Maathai has been honored as a hero and denounced as a subversive. Maathai, 51, is the founder and director of the Green Belt Movement, a 14-year-old tree-planting project staffed primarily by women. The internationally acclaimed movement, which has spread to a dozen African nations, has planted 10 million trees. The goal: to counter rampant tree clearing and the advance of the African desert, which contribute to poverty and hunger. To date, 50,000 Kenyan women have worked in 1,500 GBM nurseries, earning 4 cents for each tree they tend; funds come...
...Maathai, the first woman in Kenya to earn a Ph.D. (in anatomy) and to become a professor at the University of Nairobi, has at times crossed swords with the Kenyan government for questioning aspects of modernization. In 1989 she was thrown out of her state-owned offices when she opposed construction of a 62- story skyscraper -- the tallest on the continent -- in a public park in Nairobi. Maathai simply moved her headquarters into her home, and triumphed as investors withdrew their support from the project. Maathai is philosophical about such battles: "You cannot fight for the environment without eventually getting...
...Wangari Maathai took on a formidable mission: holding back Kenya's advancing desert. Rampant tree cutting and unchecked population growth have stripped much of the country's land, generating hunger and poverty. In response, Maathai organized the Green Belt Movement, a national tree-planting program run by women. "Because women here are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve," explains Maathai, 49, who was the first Kenyan woman to earn a Ph.D. (in anatomy) and the first to become a professor at the University of Nairobi...
With GBM's support, women establish nurseries within their villages and then persuade farmers to accept and raise tree seedlings. GBM pays the women 2 cents for each native plant they grow; exotic species are worth one-fifth as much. Farmers get the plants for free. So far, Maathai has recruited about 50,000 women, who have spurred the planting of 10 million trees. She still has a long way to go toward her original goal of planting a tree for every Kenyan (the population is now about 24 million), but in the meantime, her idea has inspired similar movements...