Wangari Maathai's dream lives on through VSO Jitolee Partners
The morning of 24th November last year, found VSO Jitolee staff, volunteers and their partners from the Secure Livelihoods programme planting trees in Loikitok, South Eastern Kenya. Loitokitok is at the bottom of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the ‘Kenyan side’ of the tallest mountain in Africa that straddles Kenya and Tanzania. It was an arduous task, planting close to 1000 seedlings of both indigenous and food trees (bananas).
The Secure Livelihoods partners to a large extent rely on the environment namely fertile soils, predictable rain patterns and permanent sources of water for their livelihoods. Therefore, conserving the environment was literally a matter of life and death to them. As we planted seedling after seedling late into the afternoon of a sweltering sun, someone remarked, “ Wangari Maathai would be so proud of us!”
Indeed, Prof. Wangari Maathai (commonly known as Wangari Maathai) was the first thought that entered every Kenyan’s mind whenever doing an ‘environmental duty.’ It was therefore such a shock when Kenya and indeed the world woke up to the news of her demise on the morning of 26th September 2011, because we only associated her with green life …. never with death.
“It is just too sad to lose such a positive role model,” said Pauline Kamau, the Programme Manager in charge of Secure Livelihoods at VSO Jitolee.
The government announced 29th September the national day of mourning in honour of the humble woman who surmounted odds bigger than Mt. Kilimanjaro to actualize her dream.
No doubt she has been and will continue to be eulogized for a long time to come, but for VSO Jitolee and her partners, her dream will live on, especially among Secure Livelihoods partners who have pledged to do all it takes to secure the environment.
By Renaldah Mjomba, VSO Policy and Advocacy Adviser
About Wangari Maathai
Prof. Wangari Maathai 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 between January 2003 and November 2005. In 2011, she died of complications from ovarian cancer.
