 Hello everybody, my name is Mara, the storyteller, and I have got an incredible story for you today. It's a story about a woman, a very special woman. And sometimes they say that there are some people who are born who are earmarked for greatness, and perhaps that was the case with this woman. She was born into the village of Ihiphe in Kenya, and the word Ihiphe itself means beautiful. She was surrounded by trees and flowers and a great silvery river that snaked its way through the landscape. And when she was born, everybody around her saw a fire dancing and flashing in her eyes, and they said, oh, this one is born of God. And so they gave her the name Wangari. And Wangari was a passionate child, full of determination. She raced here, she raced there, she was always trying new things, and she was full of questions because she was a curious child. How come this is like this? When are we going to go here? What is that? Where is so-and-so? Where what? Who why? Where what? Who why? Until finally they said, Wangari, stop with your questions. But she never did. Even at school it was exactly the same. She was quizzing her teachers all day long, and her teachers thought, my goodness, this girl, she is really fearless. But Wangari was not fearless. Sometimes she was filled with fear. She worried about what people thought of her. Sometimes she was scared to go to places that she had never been before. Sometimes she was shy about meeting people that she had never encountered before. But as I said, she was a curious girl. And her curiosity about the world and about people and about ways of doing things often won over her fear. She worked very, very hard. And because she was so smart, as she became older, they began to think that perhaps Wangari was the sort of person who would benefit from travelling outside her country to meet new people and explore new ideas. And so they gave her a scholarship and they sent Wangari all the way to America. And when she reached America, she was incredibly excited. The opportunity to see brand new cultures meet weird and wonderful people. And the thing that fascinated her most was the ideas. The conversations that she had about people doing extraordinary things. One story in particular inspired her because she noticed that in the city of Pittsburgh there was a lot of air pollution and there were people who were trying to find ways to get rid of it completely. She had never heard of anything like this being done on such a huge scale and it filled her with joy and even more curiosity about the kinds of things that perhaps she might be able to do. And when her time in America was done and she returned back home to Kenya, she got herself a job and she began to try and apply some of these wonderful ideas. But there was something bothering her. You know that niggling, gnawing sensation deep inside your soul that something is not right? Something was bothering her and one day she realized what it was. She was on her way home after a long day's work and she saw all the women who were seated at the side of the road selling their tomatoes, selling their potatoes, selling their vegetables and their fruit and she saw that they were really struggling. They didn't have very much money and the quality of the produce that they were selling it really wasn't the best quality at all and she began to wonder why on earth this was. She was a curious person and so she began to dig deeper and deeper into the reasons why. And she discovered that the lives of these women were so difficult because of the environment. You see, many of them would go home and they would chop down the trees to have firewood so that they could cook for their meals and she thought well if everybody is chopping down the trees well that's no good for anything. How is the soil going to retain the rain when it falls? And if the soil is poor then of course the fruits and vegetables are going to be poor and so she started to meet with these women and explained to them the importance of keeping the trees and planting new bushes and flowers and plants and taking care of the environment and at first they scoffed and they said but we don't have anything we need the firewood but when she began to explain how everything is dependent on each other they began to understand and they started to plant the trees and from a handful of women it slowly began to spread wider and wider and wider until soon there were hundreds of women planting trees and then there were thousands of people planting trees and Wangari hadn't realised it but she was the founder of the green belt movement in Kenya a wonderful environmental organisation committed to making sure that the green spaces in Kenya thrived and flourished Now one day, Wangari was busy sitting at home enjoying the tweeting of the birds around her and enjoying looking out over the flowers and the trees in her own little garden when suddenly she heard news news that the government wanted to build a 60 story building in the middle of Uhuru Park and Uhuru Park was the biggest park in the city of Nairobi Wangari was aghast You can't build a 60 story building in the middle of our green spaces and she thought, what am I going to do? How can I possibly go against the government? and it was then that she remembered a story that her mother had told her when she was just a little girl It was the story of a forest, a beautiful forest and in that forest there lived many birds and animals and one day they woke up and there was a terrible smell in their forest and as they looked around they saw great swirls of smoke they saw fires blazing and they realised that their forest was on fire they started to run as fast as they possibly could the monkeys swinging from branch to branch the birds winging their way through the trees the insects buzzing here there everywhere trying to escape the toxic smoke the animals crashed through the trees and the bushes let us get out of here, let us get out of here they raced as fast as they could they reached the river, they plunged in, they slammed to the other side and exhausted they emerged and they looked back as their beautiful home burned and it was then that they saw somebody a tiny little hummingbird and the hummingbird was flying towards the river dipped in a tiny little droplet of water on its tongue in its beak and then it flew back into the forest and spat it out onto the fire Hummingbird, what do you think you're doing the animals cry? You can't possibly put out that fire, have you gone mad? Have you seen the size of those flames? and Hummingbird, well not to be put off and not liking the idea that they were calling her a little bit silly she turned back to them and she said well I am doing the very best that I can and she continued to carry drop after drop back and forth into the fire and when the animals saw that and they heard what she had said they were ashamed and they decided that they too needed to do the very best that they could and so they started to plunge into the river and the antelopes would soak up that water into their fur race into the forest and shake the water all over the flames the elephants marched towards the river sucked up all the water and squirted it all over the fire and slowly but surely the fire burnt itself out and the forest was saved and when Wangari thought of that little story she thought that she could be like that Hummingbird she had to do something she had to do the best that she could and so she started to write letters she started first writing letters to her friends and then to different organizations and groups and student bodies, anybody that she could think of we have to fight the building of this 60 story nonsense she said in her letter and people began to respond and other people agreed with her we can't have this monstrosity there not in our green spaces and soon pressure began to mount on the government you can't build that building you can't build it here you're gonna have to think of something else come up with another plan and there was so much pressure from people in Kenya as well as international bodies that the government finally had to concede the building stopped and Uhuru Park was saved and oh Wangari Madhai well she was full of joy and happiness she had done it not by herself but with the help of everybody around her and from that moment on she realized that even though she was just one person she could do a huge amount and so for the rest of her life she committed herself to planting trees educating people about the environment fighting whenever she saw injustice and inequality and after many years she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the first African woman to ever do so and seven years after she had received such a wonderful award well Wangari Madhai she was an elderly lady and she passed away however Wangari Madhai she had lived a full, rich life she had many accomplishments but perhaps her greatest legacy was not the fact that she was that tiny little hummingbird but because she inspired hundreds and thousands of people around the world to listen to their hearts and to also be the very very best that they could and do what they needed to do and that is the story of Wangari Madhai Professor Wangari Madhai