The Wangari Maathai Foundation has finalised plans to build a commemorative house to immortalise the life, works and achievements of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

The  Wangari Muta Maathai House (WMH), expected to be completed in five years, will  house all her works and awards including the Nobel Peace Prize, books, iconic paintings and photos, lectures, speeches, wardrobe and  the story of the “humming bird” that she so loved  to recount.

The memorial multi-purpose complex near the Girraffe Centre at Lang’ata in Nairobi, will also provide the Laureate’s final resting place where her ashes will be archived. Her ashes are currently being kept by the family.

The WMH is expected to attract global visitors among them conservationists and other lovers of nature who wish to honour and learn the story of the environmental heroine.

During her entire public life, including being the legislative representative for Tetu constutuency,  an assistant  minister for Environment and the  founder of the Green Belt Movement, Prof Maathai stood for courage, integrity, honesty  and dialogue among other social values.

Board members of the Wangari Maathai Foundation paid a courtesy call on Kenya’s First Lady Margaret Kenyatta at State House on February 2, and presented her the designs of the legacy project.

They were the chairperson of the foundation Wanjira Maathai, Evelyn Njeri Gakonyo, Cynthia Ann Ryan and Aisha Karanja. They were accompanied by the principal at the Ralph Appelbaum Associates Melanie Ide and Interpretive Planner of the project Louise Bernard.

The First Lady described the proposed project as a wonderful initiative  where visitors, both local and international,  can experience peace and serenity when completed. Besides the actual archive, the project incorporates spaces  for democratic discourses, family and the children fun areas.

Besides providing a historic space to tell the story of Prof Maathai and a place to immortalise her work and life for posterity,, the  WMH seeks to among other issues, inspire, motivate and challenge the public to lead  purposeful lives.

Visitors to the archive will be exposed to the personality of Wangari Maathai in her multiple dimensions as an activist, environmentalist, Nobel laureate, elder, politician  and mother.

In doing so, says the foundation, the WMH will reflect not only the holistic dimension of Prof Maathai  herself, but the hoilistic dimension of positive and lasting social change itself.

The WMH also seeks to inculcate such values as peace, transparency, accountability, honesty, tolerance and love for the environment in a way that would include addressing social ills such as poverty and disempowerment.

When complete, the WMH will capture in three dimensions the vision, passion and holistic consciousness of the First African woman and first environmentalist to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.