The late Prof Wangari Maathai and also a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate has been honored by the African Union (AU) by a proposal to name the gardens in front of its headquarters building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after her.
This proposal was reached at the just concluded 25th AU Summit in Jo-burg, South Africa. Congo made the proposal to honor the late environmentalist.
“The overall objective is to highlight the work and achievement of the late Prof Wangari Maathai and identify how best the African Union can continue to commemorate and celebrate her life,” reads a statement made by the delegate in the proposal.
Congo further said that it is important for the continent to recognize and applaud the achievements and contributions made by the late Wangari Maathai. Congo said these in reference to the late Prof’s fight for human rights, democracy and environment conservation. The late Prof won the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate awards after being on the fore-front for decades in a fight to conserve the environment and political activism in Kenya and beyond.
Prof Wangari Maathai will also be remembered for being very instrumental in engaging rural women in Kenya into planting and nurturing trees, through agroforestry. She introduced this concept in 1976 during her tenure at the National Council of Women, and it later developed into the Green Belt Movement. The initiative is said to have been instrumental in the planting of at least 20 million trees in different farms, schools and church compounds.