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On a chilly day in March 2013,

Prince Charles attended a memorial celebration at Kew. He spoke with feeling about the departed woman whom he described

as a close friend he had admired and loved and hugged. When she had died two years previously, similar tributes poured in from an

incredible array of world leaders President Obama, Ban Ki-moon, Mikhail Gorbachev,

Nelson Mandela, Coffey Annan, Desmond Tutu, Hillary Clinton and many more.

The woman who'd meant so much to all these people is the subject of today's great lives.

And yet I think it's fair to say that many listeners

won't know much, if anything, about her.

So here to put that right is this week's guest

Zimbabwean epidemiologist Precious Lunga, who's currently using technology

to deliver health services across Africa. Precious, you've nominated as your great life that of the Kenyan-born environmentalist and activist Wangary Matay.

When did her life and work intersect with your life? She was a lot older than you. Yes, very much so. So I was born at least three decades or more after. The legacy, what she describes what happened during colonization in Kenya is something

that I've observed in Zimbabwe, the land issues, the importance of education, and also the role of women in society.

African women are often pictured as carrying water of our heads or collecting firewood or doing all those chores and

and yes respected for them but there's very much a role of where we where we should be

what's so inspirational about Wangari Mata is that she wasn't

afraid to be strong and vocal

that challenges authority.

And there were consequences to that as well.

Reading her autobiography, unbowed, what really leaps out at you is the, partly the impact of colonization

...