Google doodle

By Lonah Kibet

Nairobi, Kenya: Two years down the line and the legacy left by Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai is still remembered and celebrated worldwide.

Google becomes the recent entrant to honour the fallen Nobel laureate by celebrating what would have been her 73rd birthday, today, by uploading a special Doodle on its homepages across Sub Sahara Africa in her honour.

In the doodle, a figure of a smiling Prof Maathai replaces the second “o” in the Google logo, which was created by the Google Doodle team, and is intended to commemorate Maathai’s myriad achievements.

The Maathai doodle shall run for 24 hours — from midnight on March 31 to midnight on April 1, 2013.

Maathai, born in 1940 in a rural setting, is fondly remembered as the founder of the Green Belt Movement and was the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

The movement, which has planted around 51 million trees, has also helped to empower African women by helping them develop new skills and educate themselves.

She also authored four books: ‘The Green Belt Movement; Unbowed: A Memoir; The Challenge for Africa; and Replenishing the Earth’.

Her work made her to be featured in a number of books and documentaries where in one she and the Green Belt Movement was the subject of a documentary film, Taking Root: the Vision of Wangari Maathai (Marlboro Productions, 2008).

Maathai travelled to many countries where she also gave many speeches and wrote many articles over the years. She was also a celebrated academic, attaining a PhD (1971) from the University of Nairobi, where she also taught veterinary anatomy.

Big blow

Maathai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, which led to her position of chairing the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor in 1976 and 1977 respectively.

Maathai was internationally acknowledged for her struggle and courage in fighting for democracy, human rights, and environmental conservation, and served on the board of many organisations.

Her death on September 25, 2011 in Nairobi at age 71 after a long battle with cancer was a big blow to the country and the world at large.

She was mourned by high profile figures including US President Barack Obama, who in his condolence message said, “the world mourns and celebrates the extraordinary life of a remarkable woman who devoted her life to peacefully protecting what she called ‘our common home and future’.”

The British Royal Family recently honoured Prof Maathai, and the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, paid his tribute by planting a tree in her memory at an environment conservation conference.

He remarked: “So very greatly indeed I admired her, and whose loss we continue to mourn regularly, and whose remarkable legacy we celebrate namely the Green Belt Movement which continues, thank God, to have a lasting impact on the planet.”

Canadian Academy for Diversity Leadership has also been celebrating the life and times of Maathai since November 2011.

In her honour in Kenya, The Wangari Maathai Scholarship Fund was launched this month, and will award young women of ages 18-25, dedicated to environmental conservation next year.

A second year student at Mount Kenya University, Abigael Ndinda, won the first award last week.

The fund, sponsored by the Green Belt Movement and other partners, also seeks to promote a youth-led sustainable development agenda.

Google Doodles, customisations of the Google logo, were started in 1999 by Google Webmaster Dennis Hwang during his internship period in the organisation.

Since then, the Doodle team has celebrated and marked worldwide events, anniversaries, and holidays with Doodles that are designed on, around and through the Google logo on the site’s home page. Last month, Google honoured Miriam Makeba, South African singer and activist with a doodle.

More than 200 doodles have appeared on the US site Google.com since and hundreds more have appeared on international domains. They are usually designed by either googlers or users.