2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai gestures during her address Tuesday at Hendricks Chapel. The address was the Geoffrey O. Seltzer Lecture and part of the University Lectures series. Maathai spoke about her work on community empowerment and environmental conservation.
As a member of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK), she introduced the idea of engaging ordinary Kenyans to plant trees. She developed this idea into GBM, a broad-based grassroots organization that mobilizes women's groups to plant trees to conserve the environment, while, at the same time, empowering them to improve the quality of their own lives. Through GBM, Maathai has helped women plant more than 30 million trees on farms and in school and church compounds across Kenya.
