A Tiny Seed: The Story of Wangari Maathai

Nicola Rijsdijk

In a village on
the slopes of Mount Kenya in East Africa,
a little girl worked in the fields with her mother.
Her name was Wangari.

Wangari loved
being outside.
In her family’s food garden she
broke up the soil with her
machete.
She pressed tiny seeds
into the warm earth.

Her favourite
time of day was just after sunset.
When it got too dark to see the plants,
Wangari knew it was time to go home.
She would follow
the narrow paths
through the fields, crossing rivers as she went.

Wangari was a
clever child and couldn’t wait
to go to school. But her mother and father
wanted her to stay and help them at home.
When she was
seven years old, her big brother
persuaded her parents to let her go to school.

She liked to
learn!
Wangari learnt
more and more with every book she read.
She did so well
at school that she was invited to study in the United States of America.
Wangari was
excited! She wanted to know more about the world.

At the American
university Wangari learnt many new things. She studied plants and how they
grow.
And she remembered how she grew: playing games with her brothers in the
shade of the trees in the beautiful Kenyan forests.

The more she
learnt, the more she realised
that she loved the people of Kenya.
She wanted
them to be happy and free.
The more she
learnt, the more she
remembered her African home.

When she had
finished her studies,
she returned to Kenya.
But her country had changed.
Huge
farms stretched across the land.

Women had no wood
to make cooking fires.
The people were poor and the children were hungry.

Wangari knew what
to do. She taught the women how to plant trees from seeds.
The women sold
the trees and used the money to look after their families.

The women were
very happy.
Wangari had helped them to feel powerful and strong.

As time passed,
the new trees grew into forests,
and the rivers started flowing again.
Wangari’s message spread across Africa.

Today, millions
of trees
have grown from Wangari’s seeds.

Wangari had
worked hard. People all over the world took notice, and gave her a famous
prize.
It is called the Nobel Peace Prize, and she was the first African woman
ever to receive it.

Wangari died in
2011,
but we can think
of her every time we
see a beautiful tree.