In fact, her Green Belt Movement was an initiative of NCWK which she started, nurtured and carried on to the mature organisation it is today.
NCWK is the umbrella body for women’s organisations, hose affiliates include women’s non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, and faith-based organisations.
The most notable of these is Maendeleo ya Wanawake.
The NCWK was started after independence in 1964 as a link between women’s organisations and national, regional and international women’s forums.
I came into the leadership of NCWK long after Prof Maathai, and save for what I read as documented information in the office, I had not had much contact with her until an accidental meeting during the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, a regional forum in which the NCWK represents Kenya.
The NCWK had wanted her to deliver a keynote address on “Environment and its relationship to food security” in the Great Lakes First Ladies meeting that would take place that year.
To speed up the process, I was tasked with the job of looking for her as soon as I came back and request if she would be available.
A day after I arrived from Kigali, I bumped into her during a function and delivered the message. I had also just listened to the TV series, Making of a Nation on Jane Kiano.
I remembered the commentator had talked of a fallout between the NCWK and the government of the day when Prof Maathai was chairperson.
I sought to know from her the details of this famous “rift”. It is her answer to that request that I will never forget.
She laughed off the incident and told me: “Leadership is challenging. Leadership by a woman is even more challenging, but the key to effective leadership is not one based on popularist gain, rather, one focused on issues whose agenda touches positively many, many lives. As for the issue of NCWK and the government during my tenure, let history be the judge.”
It is these words by Prof Maathai that inspired me to place NCWK at the centre-stage alongside other women affiliates, for advocacy for a new Constitution, and most recently lobby day in and day out for the successful enactment of the National Gender and Equality Commission Act, 2011.
With the help of the ex-chairperson, Ms Lilian Mwaura, the NCWK is writing a book on all the former chairpersons and their contribution to the women’s movement with a hope to inspiring young upcoming women’s leaders.
As expected, the draft features Prof Maathai prominently. The book will include other women of significance like the late Rebecca Cherono and the late Dekah Ibrahim, both of whom we lost recently to road accidents.
On behalf of the women of Kenya, the NCWK mourns the death of Prof Maathai whom we shall always remember as courageous and “unbwogable”.I have received suggestions from women that I announce that all women whose jobs, culture and religion allow should wear a kitenge, the dress that Prof Maathai always liked, tomorrow when she will be laid to rest.
This will be our special way of participating in her funeral.
Ms Gachoya is the chairperson, the National Council of Women of Kenya (ncwkwangari2011@yahoo.com)
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