Nobel Peace Prize laureate and environmentalist Wangari Maathai visited the AU bookstore Saturday to greet students and sign copies of her new memoir, "Unbowed."
Maathai, a Kenyan native, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her environmental activism in Africa. She was the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the Peace Prize.
Environmental degradation is the most pervasive problem facing Africa today, Maathai said. She founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, a grassroots environmental movement based in Kenya in which women were encouraged to plant trees to prevent environmental hazards and to advocate social change. In her memoirs, Maathai recounted experiences of harassment and reproach by the Kenyan government and police due to her social activism.
On the Green Belt Movement's Web site, Maathai is quoted saying, "The planting of trees is the planting of ideas. By starting with the simple act of planting a tree, we give hope to ourselves and to future generations."
According to the Web site, the organization has planted over 40 million trees across Africa since its inception. The movement's goal is to plant 1 billion trees worldwide in the next decade.
Since winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Maathai has used her recognition as a platform to speak about a variety of social issues facing Kenya and the rest of Africa. She criticized former Kenyan leaders for stealing aid funds given to the country and asked the Bush administration for debt relief, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Maathai now serves as the presiding officer of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council of the African Union and the Kenyan Assistant Minister of the Environment.
Maathai, 66, was soft-spoken and calm when she met with students on Saturday. Dressed in traditional Kenyan fabric with a brightly colored scarf in her hair, she offered broad smiles to everyone she met. She arrived with an entourage of friends and admirers, including her daughter, Wanjira, and a friend from college, Florence Salisbury.
Salisbury attended Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas with Maathai in the early 1960s. Salisbury attributed Maathai's success in activism to her "bright mind" and her "willingness to work."
Students and their parents crowded into the bookstore during Parents Weekend to greet Maathai and to have their books signed.
Hanna Akerblom, a native of Sweden and a second year graduate student at AU, listed Wangari Maathai as one of the people she would most like to meet in a recent classroom activity. Her wish was granted on Saturday.
Akerblom is studying public affairs and public policy with an emphasis on international development. She said she has wanted to meet Maathai for a long time.
"[I] thought it was a really big deal when she won the Nobel Peace Prize," Akerblom said.
