Cinema Politica film tonight in Galileo's

trevor.kenney — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:27:16 +0000

The Lethbridge Public Interest Research Group is screening the film, Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, Tuesday night, 7 p.m. in Galileo's Gallery.

Everyone is welcome to attend this free event, a part of the Cinema Politica documentary film series, screening every Tuesday in Galileo's.

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai is a 79-minute film that tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy; a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.

FULL SYNOPSIS

Planting trees for fuel, shade, and food is not something that anyone would imagine as the first step toward winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet with that simple act Wangari Maathai, a woman born in rural Kenya, started down the path that reclaimed her country's land from 100 years of deforestation, provided new sources of food and income to rural communities, gave previously impoverished and powerless women a vital political role in their country, and ultimately helped to bring down Kenya's twenty-four-year dictatorship.

Taking Root weaves a compelling and dramatic narrative of one woman's personal journey in the context of the turbulent political and environmental history of her country. Raised in the rural highlands of Kenya, educated in the United States during the 1960s civil rights era, and the first female to receive a PhD in East Africa, Maathai discovered the heart of her life's work by reconnecting with the rural women with whom she had grown up. They told her that their daily lives had become intolerable: they were walking longer distances for firewood, clean water had become scarce, the soil was disappearing from their fields, and their children were suffering from malnutrition. Maathai thought to herself, "Well, why not plant trees?" Trees provide shade, prevent soil erosion, supply firewood and building materials, and produce nutritious fruit to combat malnutrition. With this realization Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots organization encouraging rural women to plant trees.

UNews - Green Belt Movement

Cinema Politica film tonight in Galileo's

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