All about wangari maathai biography short

Kenyan environmental and political activist (1940–2011)

"Maathai" redirects here. For the Kenyan supermarket chain, see Maathai Supermarkets.

Wangarĩ Maathai (; 1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a Kenyan social, environmental, and political activist who founded the Green Belt Movement,^[2][3] an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights.

In 2004 she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.^[4]

As a beneficiary of the Kennedy Airlift, she studied in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree from Mount St. Scholastica and a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

She went on to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to become a Doctor of Philosophy, receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Nairobi in Kenya.^[5] In 1984, she got the Right Livelihood Award for "converting the Kenyan ecolo