I was fortunate to be able to spend most of December in Africa – at the African Social Forum, in Lusaka, Zambia and the rest of the time at home with my family in Kenya for the holidays. Being at home in Africa gave me an indelible memory and perspective on two of the biggest stories of the last quarter of 2004 – the Asian Tsunami and Prof. Wangari Maathai winning the Nobel Prize – more on Prof. Maathai and the Nobel Prize later.

I was sitting in my parents’ living room, and the television news came on, reporting that one person had been killed near Mombasa (on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline) by an unusually fierce tidal wave. The next bulletin we heard concerned the dead and missing in the neighboring countries, Somalia and Tanzania. But it was only the next day that we began to get more perspective on the disaster.

I’ve seen a number of critiques of the coverage of the tsunamis in the European and North American media. Too much focus on tourists in Thailand and Sri Lanka seems to be the consensus – too much insistence on showing what producers and editors figure are people their audience can identify with.

I’ll have to admit that until I got to London five days later, all I saw of that coverage was glimpses of CNN International in Nairobi restaurants, so I don’t know how distorted the pictures may have been. However, I do think the results of the coverage speak volumes: the tremendous amount of money being raised from people in wealthier countries is not being raised to help the tourists’ families, it is being raised on behalf of the communities in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, the Seychelles, Somalia, and other places hit hard by the tsunamis.

A connection to a devastating situation, to the people whose lives are being devastated by it, can shift from apathy to action in a split second. It is one of the challenges that social and economic justice campaigners face. We at the 50 Years Is Enough Network struggle with this because we cannot always convey the depth of the suffering caused by the economic policies of the IMF and the World Bank. If we could demonstrate the extreme urgency of putting a halt to structural adjustment programs in a way that personally touched people in the wealthy countries that control those institutions, we could mobilize larger numbers of activists to demand change. We have had some success, but we still have much work to do. The movements for global justice have to remain strong and grow stronger so that we can really drive the message home.

John Pilger, the Australian documentary filmmaker and essayist, has called the impact of global trade and financial policies “the other tsunami.” Indeed, with over 30,000 children dying every day from preventable and curable diseases, according to the United Nations, that is little exaggeration. As of this writing, 17 days since the tsunami (January 12, 2005), that makes over 510,000 children dead. And we haven’t even counted the tens of thousands other people who have died from the HIV/AIDS pandemic or from war in Iraq, in Darfur, in the Great Lakes region of Africa and elsewhere, or the women who have died in childbirth or under the occupation in Palestine or from landmines, or, or …the list is too long. The tragedy in the causes of death in this latter list is that they are treatable, preventable, curable, and/or resolvable. What is the world doing, what are you doing, what am I doing, to change the status quo?

To bring this truth home to people is our collective daily challenge. I think the tsunami also reminds us of the importance of focusing on how each person, individually, grasps monumental news – and of how vital one person’s response can be. Journalists sent to cover the tsunami have said that they find it virtually impossible to convey the enormity of the devastation in any one place. Pictures, film, audio, words – no matter what combination they try, it seems a hollow effort. And of course that sensation is multiplied by all the places decimated. There is literally no way to comprehend it all at once.

And there lies the importance of the single story, the gripping image. And often, the most effective actions individuals can take are rooted in the very specific, the very local. In the U.K., on the way back from Kenya, I read the story of a 10-year-old grade-school student, Tilly Smith, who was on vacation at a Thai resort with her parents at the time of the tsunami. When the tide suddenly went out, leaving fish stranded on the beach, she recognized the phenomenon as a telltale sign of a tsunami, which she had learned about in school two weeks earlier. She explained to her mother the danger she recognized, they raised the alarm and evacuated the beach saving over 100 lives. The hotel personnel, alerted by Tilly and her mother also helped; no one was killed or seriously injured on that one beach in Phuket.

Tilly is a hero. She applied a lesson from her sixth-grade classroom and had an impact no one could have predicted two weeks earlier in her grade school classroom. In a different way, the many ordinary people from around the world who have responded to the tsunami with donations of cash, clothes, food, etc. are heroes too. They have taken a measure of responsibility for their global community.

Tragically, the creditors of the world seem to have been bypassed and untouched by the tragedy of the tsunami. It is outrageous that the Paris Club and other creditors are discussing a “debt moratorium” rather than immediately enacting 100% cancellation for the tsunami-affected countries. When one hears of children donating their meager weekly allowances to the survivors of the tsunami, one cannot but be disgusted by the stinginess of most of the world’s governments and financial institutions.

In the devastated countries and communities the generosity and heroism is even greater. The many stories of how surviving fisher folk and agricultural producers are picking up the pieces to help themselves and each other are inspiring. In India and elsewhere the efforts of local organizations and international networks like Via Campesina in responding to immediate needs, but insisting on reconstruction and long term investment for the benefit of the most vulnerable have been simply heroic. In Sri Lanka, groups being watchful and fighting against post-tsunami reconstruction becoming a chance to further the neo-liberal economic schemes of the government by displacing coastal communities to make way for tourist hotels, etc. The list of examples is very long and our obligation is to continue to stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers as they struggle to rebuild their lives, communities, and livelihoods. Even in tragedy and in the midst of unimaginable death and destruction the dignity and unrelenting self-determination of impoverished and devastated peoples have persevered.

And speaking of unrelenting determination, this is a key trait of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Prof. Wangari Maathai founder of the Green Belt Movement of Kenya. Prof. Maathai returned to Kenya on December 30th a few weeks after she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on December 10th. I was honored to be among those who greeted her at the airport, escorted her into town, and attended a public reception in her honor in downtown Nairobi, hosted by Kenya’s Vice President.

It was a powerfully profound moment. I could not hold back the tears riding in the 21 Kilometer motorcade which was led by a motorcycle police outrider via a route lined up with police officers holding back the traffic and saluting as we passed. A saying in Gikuyu, my mother tongue, kept coming to mind, “ G&Mac247;utir&Mac247;i &Mac247;utuk&Mac247;u &Mac247;utak&Mac247;ia” (even the darkest night is followed by dawn). I remember when the police used to hunt Prof. Maathai, erecting traffic stops across the city and on the main roads leading out of the city, opening car trunks, harassing her friends and family. She was beaten, jailed, publicly vilified by President Moi and his sycophants, and continuously under attack. What a change? And even more touching were the thousands of ordinary Kenyans who lined the motorcade route, waved from their homes, and businesses, and honked as the motorcade drove past. It was another moment to remind us/me that change is possible in our lifetime.

The Green Belt Movement changed Kenya, the role of women, and gave Africa our first woman Nobel Prize winner. Not small accomplishments, nor easily achieved. The Green Belt Movement was founded in 1977 as a tree planting project of the National Council of Women of Kenya. Its mission was to reverse the deforestation caused by a combination of the struggle for independence in the 1950s (when the British decided to try to eradicate hiding places for the freedom fighters), commercial exploitation, and over-use for firewood. It involved, almost exclusively, women who organized to start a tree nursery, and then planted trees throughout the area and made sure they grew to maturity. The 2004 Nobel Prize is both a singular recognition of one woman’s leadership, but without a doubt it is also the collective recognition of the women of the Green Belt Movement and of African women, valuing women’s work and accomplishments in a way that they have never been valued.

The first public Green Belt Tree Nursery was founded in my home village, Kanyar&Mac247;ir&Mac247;i, by the members of the Mothers’ Union at St. Joseph’s Church Kanyar&Mac247;ir&Mac247;i. Due to the close proximity to Nairobi, the Kanyar&Mac247;ir&Mac247;i Mothers’ Union Green Belt Tree Nursurey became both a showcase nursery and also the training venue for groups wanting to start Green Belt tree nurseries in Kenya and across Africa. But it soon became evident that the Green Belt Movement was about a lot more than planting trees.

I wrote a thesis on the on-the-ground reality of the local village groups that came together for the Green Belt projects. Traveling around Kenya to gather perspectives I witnessed the change that was occurring. The women’s tree-planting groups had become vehicles for women’s empowerment and social change in the local communities. When women grew trees, they become economic actors and so challenge established structures. They ended up dealing with all sorts of issues as a consequence – corruption, women’s rights, role of women in Kenya and the world, food security, and more.

At the national level, Prof. Maathai discovered that as fast as Green Belt groups were planting trees, the government was illegally giving away tracts of forest land to cronies who cut down the trees and put up developments. Her campaign against “land grabbing” and her successful effort to prevent the president from building a 60-storey building in Uhuru Park, Nairobi’s only downtown park, won her fame and notoriety, and put her in constant danger of arrest and attack. Those were the days, when she was being beaten by police, jailed, publicly ridiculed by politicians, and hunted low and high.

So it was, for me, beyond words to see the Kenyan government honoring Prof. Maathai so lavishly – closing down streets, erecting billboards, sending the Vice President to receive and honor her. His words at the airport: “Our icon, our princess, I don’t think I have words I can use to describe our Wangari Maathai”.

As Margaret Mead has been quoted, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Both Tilly Smith and Wangari Maathai are living reminders of this truism. One person can make a difference, and acting with others, organizing, with determination and persistence, can change the world.

As we enter into a second term for George W. Bush as U.S. President, I hope that these lessons about determination, persistence, and clarity of vision will be ones we take to heart. It may be a long four years, but if we together believe and fight for justice we will be planting the seeds for a better future. And change will come, in our lifetime.