Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Wangari MaathaiRead
You cannot blame the mismanagement of the economy or the fact that we have not invested adequately in education in order to give our people the knowledge, the skills and the technology that they need in order to be able to use the resources that Africa has to gain wealth
Interpretation
What this quote means
Effective education and investment in knowledge are essential for utilizing Africa's resources for wealth creation.
Wangari Maathai emphasizes the importance of proper management and investment in education as a means for empowering individuals in Africa. By improving knowledge, skills, and technological access, people can better utilize their continent's rich resources, ultimately leading to economic growth and wealth generation. The quote highlights the responsibility for economic mismanagement and the foundations necessary for sustainable development.
Themes
EducationInvestmentKnowledgeSkillsTechnologyResourcesWealthAfrica
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing young entrepreneurs, you might say, 'As Wangari Maathai noted, we cannot blame our situations without investing in our education and skills.'
More from Wangari Maathai
All quotes →It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
Wangari MaathaiRead
I know there is pain when sawmills close and people lose jobs, but we have to make a choice. We need water and we need these forests.
Wangari MaathaiRead
We’re constantly being bombarded by problems that we face and sometimes we can get completely overwhelmed. [But] we should always feel like a hummingbird. I may feel insignificant, but I don’t want to be like the other animals watching the planet go down the drain. I’ll be a hummingbird, I’ll do the best I can.
Wangari MaathaiRead
As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service
Wangari MaathaiRead
It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
Wangari MaathaiRead
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