Curtain Falls on Human Rights Heroine

‘If you destroy the environment, poverty cannot be eliminated’ Prof. Wangari Maathai, 1940-2011.

The death of  Professor Wangari Maathai ,  the first African Women Nobel  Peace  Prize Winner  an environmentalist  and  staunch  human rights  defender is a shock   to Kenyans  and  he world. Wangari Maathai is a pioneer and a role model of women leadership, a strong advocate of women as core drivers of socio-economic development and true testimony that education is a key pathway out of poverty and suffering.

To ActionAid Kenya, Wangari Maathai is an icon of what community organizing, purposeful solidarity and passion can achieve in the fight against poverty. She believed in the ‘grassroots’… women and children living in poverty and exclusion; organized them into action; initiated seed banks for  and rallied  millions  out of poverty and  exclusion. She provided work and a means of livelihoods for many women giving them a voice while advocating for sustainable environmental management at the same time.

Thegu Women Group, a close partner of ActionAid Kenya in Kieni Local Rights Programme, is a direct offshoot of Wangari Maathai’s efforts.  The group with over fifty women established a seed bank; a concept picked from the Green Belt Movement and is now a major supplier of seedlings in Kieni district. With the support of ActionAid, the group has been transformed into a influential women land rights lobby group. ActionAid  works with Thegu group, advocating for the  rights  of  women  especially windows and  daughters to own and control land in Kieni.

At the national level, ActionAid Kenya campaigned alongside Wangari Maathai through the Green Belt Movement and Kenya Climate Change Working Group to campaign for land reforms in the country. These efforts were rewarded through recognition of property rights for women in the Constitution of Kenya and setting up of the comprehensive National Land Policy.

Coming at a time that Kenya is experiencing constitutional reforms, the death of Wangari Maathai should ignite the debate and urgency to defend human rights and provide equal opportunities for women in Kenya.