Celebrating the Legacy of Black History Month

By Daniel Kibet

Daniel Kibet, MIB Candidate, F’23

Professor Wangari Maathai, a 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and founder of Green Belt Movement mentioned; “Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist earth to heal her wounds and, in the process, heal our own.” As the first African woman to receive the coveted Nobel Peace prize award, she showed what is possible especially for women and youth from across Africa to raise their voice and take more agency in addressing issues relating to climate change, poverty and hunger.

In 2011, as a celebration of her environmental work, I led a tree planting drive in 2011 as a captain of the environment club in my high school. We managed to plant over a thousand tree plants along the streets of Iten township in Kenya. I have always aspired to champion for holistic approaches to sustainable development, especially in the agriculture sector, and aim to incorporate environmental protection and climate resilience initiatives.

Growing up in a rural community in Kerio valley that experienced economic hardships, hunger and malnutrition, I lived through the debilitating effects of hunger coupled with poverty and ethnic conflicts that ravaged the region. According to the United Nations, one in five people on the African continent suffer from hunger and African households spend the largest share of their income on food, up to 40% compared to 17% for advanced economies. The current food systems are overly reliant on rain fed agriculture and thus greatly susceptible to the effects of climate change and prolonged drought periods. I have seen farmers in my community struggle to deal with the impact of climate change and its effect on local food production and this has motivated me to develop a sustainable solution to support rural smallholder farmers increase their farm productivity and increase farm income.

Seeking opportunities that combined social entrepreneurship and community programs to improve food security, I decided to apply to Fletcher. I believed that the interdisciplinary nature of the curriculum would help me gain the skills to advocate for equality and sustainability and that Fletcher’s dynamic community of alumni, expert faculty, and globally minded students would help me reach my goals. I am interested in promoting equitable access for women and youth to access adequate nutrition, education and health and have worked extensively with rural communities in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia to improve their livelihoods and ensure that neglected communities are integrated into the development goals as aspired by sustainable development goals for no poverty and zero hunger.

The effects of climate change are here, I live and have worked in rural communities whose way of life have been transformed by this scourge. However, I do believe also we can follow in Professor Maathai’s footsteps and live out her legacy by not threatening our life-support system. After all, we only know of one livable world where we can survive, that is earth. ∎

Daniel Kibet is a second year MIB candidate at The Fletcher School.

This is the first blog post in the Black Legacy Month blog series.