Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement

Wangari Maathai is inspiring as the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize and the founder of the Green Belt Movement. She was the first woman to have a PhD in Kenya, but her heart was always in politics.

She thought that she wanted to build a movement for democracy but then she was challenged by the fact that many of the people were illiterate and she couldn't talk to them about democracy and politics and all these concepts.

She focused her energy instead on people's passion and reality around restoring nature and taking care of seedlings and trees and restoring rivers in response to brutal development. This was the start of the Green Belt Movement.