Distinguished Speaker Series

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2006 First-Year Distinguished Speaker
Wangari Maathai

Dr. Maathai is a professor, environmentalist, politician, activist, founder of the Green Belt Movement, and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. She is the first woman in Central or Eastern Africa to earn a Ph.D., the first woman to head a university department in Kenya, and the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize in Peace.

Wangari Maathai

The Green Belt Movement started with tree planting, a simple, elegant, and pragmatic solution to the problem of environmental degradation. The central philosophy of the Green Belt Movement is the empowerment of individuals to take action to improve their lives. The movement has lead to the planting of over 30 million trees in Kenya, the improvement of the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and their families, and peaceful democratic change at the national level.