Wangari Maathai

Mm-hmm.

But I also wanted to do, uh, uh, solutions that are impacting the environment positively because one of the biggest motivations was Wangari Maathai.

Mm-hmm.

Because I, I used to look at her and, and how much zeal and, and result, uh, resolve she has as far as, like, her purpose is, is concerned, and that, for me, gave me a, like, that, like, bulb-

...

Wangari Maathai's-

Yeah

... lives come onto stage.

The kind of intelligence that they had.

Yep.

You know, you know, Wangari Maathai is well known.

She won a Nobel Peace Prize.

So, um, and then people, people...

You know, we partnered with a, a, a, a woman who won the, the first person to win the Nobel Peace Prize for the environment, a wonderful woman out of Kenya named Wangari Maathai.

And she won the Nobel Peace Prize for organizing people to plant trees in Kenya.

And she would pay them eight cents a tree after the tree was planted, after it survived, and after it was replanted in the forest.

And that initiative went a long way for them, for the whole team.

Like the Nobel Prize was not for Wangari Maathai alone, it was for the whole team of women who joined and planted trees.

And that's how like a small local input can make a big difference because decisions, we need to be at the decision-making table.

We're the ones at the ground, yeah?

The civil rights movement in the United States of America, closely associated with the testimony of Martin Luther King Jr., or the end of apartheid in South Africa following the release of Nelson Mandela and his decision not to surrender the future to hatred.

In different contexts, many courageous and generous women have also stood out, including St. Laura Montoya, St. Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Mary Sklodo- Sklodowska Curie, Maria Montessori, Elizabeth Elliott, Wangari Maathai, Benazir Bhutto, and countless others from every continent whose commitment has contributed to making history more humane.

Obviously, I was thinking I, I had a very male-focused [chuckles] list, and certainly, uh, the, the role of women in, I mean, even the, the, uh, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, uh, sort of spearheaded by, uh, Eleanor Roosevelt.

And certainly, uh, I mean, I think that anyone who watches the, the I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King Jr., I don't know how anyone could persist in racism [chuckles] after watching the eloquence and the, the conviction with which, uh, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered that speech.

That's faithful investment.

Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel laureate, started planting trees on degraded land in the 1970s, and then she was arrested for it.

She planted 47 million trees over her lifetime, knowing that she'd never sit in the shade of most of them.

But she planted anyway.

So it's important that it is in our hands.

You know, one of the other Nobel laureates is Wangari Maathai, who also led this Green Belt movement and, uh, where they planted millions of trees.

And, um, you know, she said, "When you plant a tree, you are planting hope." So we are planting a seed of future of hope and this, that from one seed, a forest grows.

So you never know the impact you make.

Mm.

And I just felt like that wood, and I, and learning more and more, like I was saying about the trees, you know? And I don't know if you would know about Wangari Maathai, but she was a Kenyan woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize for, she created the Green Belt Movement in Kenya.

And she tells the story of the little hummingbird who, the forest is on fire, and all the animals are watching, and their home is burning down.

And the little hummingbird decides, "Well, I'm not just gonna stand around with you lot looking at this.

I'm gonna do something." So she goes to the lake, and she takes up a little drop in her beak, and she drops it on the fire.

And she keeps going back, you know, hundreds of times.

And the elephant says to her, "What a fool you are, you know? That's not gonna do anything." And she basically says, "Well, I'm doing the best I can." So that was Wangari Maathai's message.

And I feel like that's all we can do.

people should not be afraid of that.

When you're speaking, it reminds me of this Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai talking about discovering tadpoles and just for hours sitting there playing with the frog eggs in the river and just feeling like, how could you not want to protect earth at all costs having these sensual experiences in nature?

Hi, everyone.

My name is Francesca.

squelching my toes in this like thick black mud in michigan as i listen to the frogs croak and you know what i mean it's like nature's kind of horny

nature is horny nature is so horny nature's horny and it's okay People should not be afraid of that.

When you're speaking, it reminds me of this Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, talking about discovering tadpoles and just for hours sitting there playing with the frog eggs in the river and just feeling like, how could you not want to protect Earth at all costs having these sensual experiences in nature?

I totally agree.