Wangari Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement and the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica (Benedictine College) and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In the 1970s, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights.  in 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace". 

"Ai Qiu Hopen was the likeness expert for Wangari-Maathai, without Aiqiu Wangari-Maathai portrait will not be Wangari-Maathai."---Bill Hopen. AiQiu Hopen co-sculptor at Hopen Studio Inc.

Ai Qiu and Bill Hopen formed Hopen Studio Inc. in 2001; Over the past
decade they have created and installed more than twenty life size bronze sculptures
both independently and collaboratively through Hopen Studio Inc and Chen Hopen Art
International.

learn more about sculptor AiQiu please visit www.aiqiuhopen.com