THE LEAFLET

Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan activist, the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, and the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. In 1976, while she was serving in the National Council of Women, Professor Maathai introduced the idea of community-based tree planting. She continued to develop this idea into a broad-based grassroots organization, the Green Belt Movement (GBM), whose main focus is poverty reduction and environmental conservation through tree planting. Since its creation, over 51 million trees have been planted and thousands of women have been trained in forestry and other related fields.

Maathai’s renown legacy lives on today through her foundation and all those who she inspired to make a difference. One of the ways we honor Wangari Maathai here at Casey Trees is through our Cleaner Air Tree by Tree page. This is a resource set of five virtual investigations developed to address the Environmental Literacy Framework Guiding Questions, integrates Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and is informed by 5th grade DCPS Scope and Sequence Advisory 4 Human vs. Earth Conservation. The first investigation in the series is a reading of Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees, followed by a discussion on what Maathai meant when she said, “A tree is worth more than its wood.”

Located here in Washington, DC – Wangari Gardens is a community garden and park that carries out and honors Maathai’s legacy by inspiring passion for community engagement and providing a beautiful outdoor space for anyone to enjoy!

Established in 2012 – Wangari Gardens started with the goal of being more than a typical community garden. In exchange for the space to grow food, each plot holder at Wangari helps support community programs such as public gardens harvested by the local community, educational programming, and community development projects. Wangari Gardens seeks to create a sustainable and inclusive community of local gardeners and volunteers, dedicated to promoting community enrichment to the surrounding community.

Last Saturday, volunteers with Casey Trees came together at Wangari Gardens to help care for young trees! They worked to weed, mulch, and water vulnerable young trees and help them get a leg up in becoming an important part of our growing tree canopy.