Ecologist to receive prize
2004-12-10 10:09
Oslo - Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai will receive the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004 on Friday at a ceremony in Oslo, making her the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the prestigious award.
Maathai, 64, who was honored for her campaign to save Africa's forests and for standing at the "front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa," will receive the prize from the chairman of the Nobel Committee Ole Mjoes at a formal ceremony on Wednesday at 13:30 in Oslo's City Hall.
Maathai, who won the prize on October 8, will receive the award, plus 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4m), at a formal ceremony at Oslo's city hall on Friday, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel.
Nobel committee president Ole Mjoes will present her with the Nobel diploma and gold medal in the presence of Norway's King Harald.
More women needed
More women need to do jobs where they take decisions if they are to play a role in peace-making, Maathai said on Thursday.
Maathai, the 12th woman and the first African woman to win the Peace Prize, told reporters at the Nobel Institute that "one reason why women are not as active in peacemaking as they should be is because they are not in the decision-making."
"It is very difficult if you are on the outside shouting to people who are inside the house... We must put ourselves in the position where our voices can be heard inside the house."
Maathai, dressed in an embroidered emerald green bubu dress with a matching hair band, said she hoped the prize she was accepting "on behalf of many whose faces are not known" would help empower women around the world and especially in Africa.
"I believe that a great honour such as this bestowed on an African woman can only encourage and empower women, especially the African women. And it can only make men stand up and wonder what has hit them," she said with a broad grin.
At a separate ceremony in Stockholm on Friday, the winners of the Literature, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics prizes will receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm's Concert Hall.
That ceremony will be followed by a gala banquet at Stockholm's City Hall. - AFP
- SAPA