Wangari Maathai

Written By Sil Azevedo

“There are opportunities even in the most difficult moments.”
— Wangari Maathai

I just finished listening to "Unbowed," Wangari Maathai’s powerful memoir—and what a story it is. Hers is a legacy of remarkable accomplishments achieved against impossible odds.

Dr. Maathai founded the grassroots Green Belt Movement in Kenya, empowering women to plant trees to combat deforestation and restore degraded landscapes. She faced beatings and repeated imprisonment as a peaceful resister under President Daniel arap Moi’s authoritarian rule—yet she persevered. In time, she witnessed her country begin to open up after 24 years of oppressive leadership.

Wangari was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a PhD, later elected to parliament with 98% of the vote. She served as a UN Messenger of Peace, and championed the Billion Tree Campaign, which has led to the planting of over 11 billion trees worldwide. In 2004, she became the first African woman—and the first environmentalist—to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But what I loved most about the book was the heart that comes through. Maathai blended courage, idealism, and practicality to do what she could in the face of overwhelming adversity.

She embodied the phrase: “Think globally, act locally.” As she once said, “It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.”

I enjoyed the audiobook version (link in comments), beautifully read by Nigerian actress Chinasa Ogbuagu (Mare of Easttown, The Girl from Plainville, The Following). I felt like I was hearing Wangari herself speak.

Wangari Maathai passed away in 2011, but her legacy of resilience and vision lives on. In troubled times like ours, we have so much to learn from this brave woman who resisted—and prevailed.

Sil Azevedo

I was seven years old when I got my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic 133. It was Christmas of 1973. Since then, I have always seen the world through the lens. It is my way of making sense, of visually dealing with paradoxes and complexities of life. In high school I was the lab rat and spent each free minute at the feet of the Beseler enlarger, hypnotized by its magical light. Still today I enjoy low light ambiences. They say photographers do it in the dark. I am living proof - ha! Architecture school followed as photography was not a career option in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The combination of art, composition, light, form and space, coupled with the demands of physics found in Architecture have their parallel in photography. The concepts are transferable. As I started my career in Architecture, I soon found that I was more excited about the concept and the print than the actual building. Fantasy is my reality. I kept shooting, learning and apprenticing with some incredible artists. In time, as life took its turns, my original passion for photography became my full time profession. It has been almost 20 years since I walked into the pro shop and charged the Hasselblad and the studio lights to my credit card. As he saw the bill and my naive optimism, even the salesman exclaimed, "you're going to have to sell a lot of pictures..." I did and still do, but what drives me is not that. It is the unstoppable desire to understand and to relate. To me, that is photography.

http://silazevedo.com
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