Africa has lost a nobel Kenyan daughter as Green Belt Movement announces the passing of its founder and chair, Prof Wangari Muta Maathai.

Professor Doctor Wangari Muta Maathai, known to be the first women from eastern and central Africa, that earned the doctorate veterinary anatomy, has passed away at age 71 years.

Africa has lost a mother, role model, tireless academic, and a bravely borne, after a long illness of cancer. An inspiration to many women across Africa through inspiration and vision, she will be remembered.

Wangari Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). She subsequently earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966).

She pursued doctoral studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, obtaining a Ph.D. (1971) from the University of Nairobi where she also taught veterinary anatomy. She became chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor in 1976 and 1977 respectively.

In both cases, she was the first woman to attain those positions in the region. Wangari Maathai was active in the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976-87 and was its chairman in 1981-87. It was while she served in the National Council of Women that she introduced the idea of planting trees with the people in 1976 and continued to develop it into a broad-based, grassroots organization whose main focus is the planting of trees with women groups in order to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life.

However, through the Green Belt Movement she has assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds.

Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai started the Green Belt Movement in 1977, by working with women to improve their livelihoods, by increasing their access to resources like firewood for cooking and clean water.

She became a great advocate for better management of natural resources and for sustainability, equity, and justice. Prof. Maathai was elected to parliament and made assistant minister for environment in President Mwai Kibaki's first government in 2003.

In 1986, the Movement established a Pan African Green Belt Network and has exposed over 40 individuals from other African countries to the approach. Some of these individuals have established similar tree planting initiatives in their own countries or they use some of the Green Belt Movement methods to improve their efforts.

Today, countries that have successfully launched such initiatives in Africa, includes Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, etc.

In September 1998, she launched a campaign of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition, where she has embarked on new challenges, playing a leading global role as a co-chair of the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign, which seeks cancellation of the unpayable backlog debts of the poor countries in Africa by the year 2000. Her campaign against land grabbing and rapacious allocation of forests land has caught the limelight in the recent past.

Professor Maathai’s departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her.

Sources: Various

When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.

Eine Stimme,
die uns vertraut war, schweigt.
Ein Mensch,
der immer für uns da war,
lebt nicht mehr.
Was uns bleibt sind Liebe,
Dank und Erinnerung an viele schöne Jahre.

Wir sind nur Gast auf Erden
und wandern ohne Ruh'

mit mancherlei Beschwerden

der ew'gen Heimat zu.

Kirchenlied von Georg Thurmair

If tears could build a stairway,

And memories a lane,
I'd walk right up to Heaven
And bring you home again. (A U)

Rest in peace Christa, vergessen werden wir dich nie.

Tales of the past and reflections of long ago.

In the rich Arabic literature, we somehow become absorbed in the flow of

history and what has happened ages ago.

About some of our thoughts we seemingly ponder, what has influenced us, what

has shaped and mould our caracters. Both the defects of caracter that need to

be polished again, to bring forth the sparkle, that has been covered by a layer

of dust and a myriad other particles, that hide the glow of a jewel.

In this we find an exchange of ideas, the openess to absorb and the willingness

to learn and share new horizons.

Looking at a new horizon, bring forth mysteries of this world, to some hidden

and to others clear and open.

This make me dwell back and forth, from within the African continent and where

it all started. It started on a mighty continent, with plains and tall grass,

mountain ranges of valleys and hills, desert and savanah landscapes, camelthorn

old trees, tall palm trees that form the protection of the baobab, and rivers

that carry sweet water, over hills and mountains, valleys and step land,

cutting through desertland to the ocean.

My journeys into Africa, be it on horse back, a motor cycle, abnormal weight

truck, 4 x 4, boat, dingy, cano or catamaran, loose wing or fixed wing

aircraft, cycle or by foot, car, bus or train, camel back or horse cart, Africa

have it all.

It it luck or peace, to know the truth?

This brings me to the games we played as children, when we were still young and

innocent and under the care and protection of family life. Family life that

mean so much to us.

Accross sections of society, both rich and poor in diverse sectors starting

from arts and culture, to music and dance that were absorbed into arts and

culture, so was fables and story telling tales, which had our rich history in

it. Stories had to be told, because in written form, it were all sensored.

Till today we find the sensorship in publishing. Today when can much easier

find a bypass to make our writtings publicly. There are many forms to exploit

today by sharing files from pc to pc or through file servers and hosts to

choose from, that will eventually lead to publishing of what you have put to

save for the next generation.

The next generation started today, and most of us should had been present

yesterday, in order to start today.

Looking back at the '80s ... pc's were running on floppies and stifies ... all

programs were on externel software files. Search engines were geared up to

become browsers one day, browsers were geared up to become operating systems.

We are all questionable for how we spent our time towards development.

In this way, we come to understand, how the hotnots hamel change into a

boerbok.

Slowly but gradually our land has been taken from us, by what become known as

pattent rights.

Throught the implementation of pattent rights, many things start to lost there

value from one group and become an asset to another group.

That is why it is so much needed to learn the sciences of mathematics, physics,

chemistry and engineering, to focus on a few. This is an art and culture in

another dimension and broader sense.

Once we find the unsuspected inner resource and that stop us from content and

discourage. That is what we have identify as our own conception of a Power

Outside our self, Greater then any living creature in the universe.

I am responsible for repairing the damage, with good judgement, prudence and a

Careful sense of timing.

Hakuna matata