Founder of the Green Belt Movement of
Kenya who, in 2004, became the first
environmentalist and first African woman
to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Synopsis
Planting trees for fuel, shade, and
food is not something that anyone would
imagine as the first step toward winning
the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet with that
simple act Wangari Maathai, a woman born
in rural Kenya, started down the path
that reclaimed her country’s land from
100 years of deforestation, provided new
sources of food and income to rural
communities, gave previously
impoverished and powerless women a vital
political role in their country, and
ultimately helped to bring down Kenya's
twenty-four-year dictatorship.
TAKING ROOT
weaves a compelling and dramatic
narrative of one woman's personal
journey in the context of the turbulent
political and environmental history of
her country. Raised in the rural
highlands of Kenya, educated in the
United States during the 1960s civil
rights era, and the first female to
receive a PhD in East Africa, Maathai
discovered the heart of her life's work
by reconnecting with the rural women
with whom she had grown up. They told
her that their daily lives had become
intolerable: they were walking longer
distances for firewood, clean water had
become scarce, the soil was disappearing
from their fields, and their children
were suffering from malnutrition.
Maathai thought to herself, "Well, why
not plant trees?" Trees provide shade,
prevent soil erosion, supply firewood
and building materials, and produce
nutritious fruit to combat malnutrition.
With this realization Maathai founded
the Green Belt Movement, a
grassroots organization encouraging
rural women to plant trees.
A seemingly innocuous idea, Maathai
soon discovered that tree planting had a
ripple effect of empowering change. In
the mid 1980s, Kenya was under the
repressive regime of Daniel arap Moi
under whose dictatorship group
gatherings were outlawed. In tending
their nurseries women had a legitimate
reason to gather outside their homes and
discuss the roots of their problems.
These grassroots women soon found
themselves working successively against
deforestation, poverty, ignorance,
embedded economic interests, and
political oppression, until they became
a national political force.
As the trees and the Green Belt
Movement grew, a spirit of hope and
confidence also grew in ordinary
citizens – especially in women – only to
be met with violent opposition from the
government. Maathai and her colleagues
soon found themselves victims of
President Moi's political oppression. In
response, Maathai’s political activism
only grew. At great risk she lead
numerous confrontations in defense of
the environment and social justice each
of which brought her country closer to
democracy.
Through TV footage, newspaper
headlines, and chilling first person
accounts, TAKING ROOT
documents these dramatic confrontations
of the 1980s and 1990s and captures
Maathai's infectious determination and
unwavering courage. Through perseverance
and widespread grassroots organization,
Kenya's fight for democracy finally
prevailed. In 2002 a new democratically
elected government replaced Moi's, and
Maathai became a member of the new
Parliament and Assistant Minister of the
Environment and Natural Resources.
And the trees continue to grow. Today
there are more than 6,000 Green Belt
nurseries throughout Kenya that generate
income for 150,000 people, and
thirty-five million trees have deeply
altered the physical and social
landscape of the country. The Green Belt
Movement has also started programs
teaching women about indigenous foods,
income generating activities, AIDS, and
self-empowerment. Through cinema verité
footage of the tree nurseries and the
women and children who tend them,
TAKING ROOT
brings to life the confidence and joy of
people working to improve their own
lives while also ensuring the future and
vitality of their land.
Through intimate conversations with
Maathai, whose warm, powerful, and
luminous presence imbues much of the
film,
TAKING ROOT captures a
world-view in which nothing is perceived
as impossible, presenting an
awe-inspiring profile of one woman's
thirty-year journey of courage to
protect the environment, ensure equality
between men and women, defend human
rights, and promote democracy--all
sprouting from the achievable act of
planting trees.
Research for this story gathered by
Sara Herbert-Galloway
sara@blacktiemagazine.com
www.herbertcollection.com
to learn more go to:www.takingrootfilm.com