According to Wangari Maathai in her memoir, civic education is “a strategy to empower people and to give them a sense of taking their destiny into their own hands, removing their fear, so that they can stand up for themselves and for their environmental right.” – Unbowed – A Memoir
![](https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/hp3203-2017-14/files/2017/04/Screenshot-402-201bi23.png)
Imgsrc: Screen Cap of a Civic and Environmental seminar from Documentary: Taking Root (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjs0F8FdSCw)
Community Empowerment and Education holds a 3-4 day seminar which aims to examine the needs, rights and responsibilities of the community, to understand the links between environmental issue and poverty within the community and to manage the resources that the community need.
![](https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/hp3203-2017-14/files/2017/03/Screenshot-403-1ftily8.png)
Imgsrc: Screen Cap of a Civic and Environmental seminar from Documentary: Taking Root (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjs0F8FdSCw)
Through the seminar, the people understood their lack of agency to make changes to their political, economic and environmental circumstances. This is mainly because of the trust that they had placed in the leaders who had betrayed them and that they themselves were sabotaging the lives and environment by failing to use their environment wisely.
(Read more about Wangari Maathai’s conflict with the government)