Wangari Maathai Institute (WMI) hosts a Webinar on Earth Day 2020: Citizen Action Towards Securing our Future

The Institute in collaboration with the Green Belt Movement hosted a webinar on April 16, 2020 from 3pm. This was in light of the Earth Day 2020 which will be commemorated on April 22, 2020. Prof. David Mungai, Director, WMI led a team of speakers which included Marion Kamau, Chairperson, Green Belt Movement, Mr. Matthew Lefler, Manager, Earth Day Africa at Earth Day Network, Washington DC and Ms. Nyawira Gitaka, Coordinator, Earth Day Network, Kenya. The Earth Day Network seeks to build the world’s largest environmental movement to drive transformative change for people and the planet. It has headquarters in Washington, DC.  Prof. Mungai highlighted the role of WMI in tertiary training of change agents. He outlined the postgraduate training programmes at the Institute and their distinguishing features of transdisciplinarity, experiential learning and community outreach. He also discussed sustainability features and green concepts at the Wangari Maathai Institute Campus. Mr. Lefler outlined the role played by Earth Day Network in environmental protection and advocacy. This is by bringing on board all actors to ensure that everyone is involved in environmental protection. On her part Ms. Gitaka emphasized that networking, volunteerism, collaboration and inclusivity were key in environmental protection. Both speakers outlined the activities which had been planned to mark Earth Day on April 22nd, 2020 which will now have to carried out online due to the measures taken globally to contain the spread of COVID-19.

The event was one of the best attended of our seminar series with 29 participants drawn from the University of Nairobi and other national research centres.