Graça Machel

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Graça Machel
DBE
Madame Graca Machel.jpg
Graça Machel in 2010
First Lady of South Africa
In office
18 July 1998 – 14 June 1999
President Nelson Mandela
Preceded by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela*
Succeeded by Zanele Mbeki
First Lady of Mozambique
In office
11 November 1975 – 19 October 1986
President Samora Machel
Preceded by none
Succeeded by Marcelina Chissano
Personal details
Born (1945-10-17) 17 October 1945 (age 78)
Incadine, Mozambique (then Portuguese East Africa)
Spouse(s) Samora Machel
(m. 1975–1986; his death)
Nelson Mandela
(m. 1998–2013; his death)
Children Josina Z. Machel & Malengani Machel
Alma mater University of Lisbon
Occupation Teacher and then Education Minister
Religion Methodist
Graça and Samora Machel hosting Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, Maputo, 1979
US President Barack Obama greets Graça at the memorial service for her late husband Nelson Mandela, Johannesburg, 2013
Graça Machel at SOAS in 2015

Graça Machel DBE (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈɡɾasɐ mɐˈʃɛɫ], née Graça Simbine pronounced: [sĩˈbĩni], 17 October 1945) is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian. She is the widow of former South African president Nelson Mandela and of Mozambican president Samora Machel. She is an international advocate for women's and children's rights and in 1997 was made a British dame for her humanitarian work.

Graça Machel is the only woman in history to have been first lady of two separate republics,[note 1] serving as the First Lady of Mozambique from 1975 to 1986 and the First Lady of South Africa from 1998 to 1999.[1]

Personal life

She was born 17 days after her father's death, youngest of 6 children,[2] in rural Incadine, Gaza Province, Portuguese East Africa (modern-day Mozambique), she attended Methodist mission schools before gaining a scholarship to the University of Lisbon in Portugal, where she studied German and first became involved in independence issues. She is also fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English, as well as her native Shangaan language. She returned to Portuguese East Africa in 1973, joined the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) and became a schoolteacher.

Following Mozambique's independence in 1975, Machel was appointed Minister for Education and Culture. In the same year, she married Samora Machel, the first President of Mozambique. Following her retirement from the Mozambique ministry, Machel was appointed as the expert in charge of producing the groundbreaking United Nations report on the impact of armed conflict on children.[3] Her first husband died in a plane crash over South Africa in 1986.

Machel received the 1995 Nansen Medal from the United Nations in recognition of her longstanding humanitarian work, particularly on behalf of refugee children.

She married then South African President Nelson Mandela on 18 July 1998, his 80th birthday. Mandela died on 5 December 2013 after a long sickbed involving pneumonia.

In 1998, she was one of the two winners of the North-South Prize.[4]

Machel currently serves as the chair of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). She also serves as the chair of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA) Eminent Advisory Board.[5]

Positions and awards

The Elders

On 18 July 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu convened The Elders, a group of world leaders to contribute their wisdom, leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world's toughest problems. Mandela announced its formation in a speech on his 89th birthday.

Kofi Annan serves as Chair of The Elders and Gro Harlem Brundtland as Deputy Chair. The other members of the group are Martti Ahtisaari, Ela Bhatt, Lakhdar Brahimi, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jimmy Carter, Hina Jilani, Graça Machel, Mary Robinson and Ernesto Zedillo. Desmond Tutu is an Honorary Elder.

The Elders work globally, on thematic as well as geographically specific subjects. The Elders' priority issue areas include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Korean Peninsula, Sudan and South Sudan, sustainable development, and equality for girls and women.[10]

Graça Machel has been particularly involved in The Elders' work on child marriage, including the founding of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage.[11][12]

The Elders are independently funded by a group of donors: Sir Richard Branson and Jean Oelwang (Virgin Unite), Peter Gabriel (The Peter Gabriel Foundation), Kathy Bushkin Calvin (The United Nations Foundation), Jeremy Coller and Lulit Solomon (J Coller Foundation), Niclas Kjellström-Matseke (Swedish Postcode Lottery), Randy Newcomb and Pam Omidyar (Humanity United), Jeff Skoll and Sally Osberg (Skoll Foundation), Jovanka Porsche (HP Capital Partners), Julie Quadrio Curzio (Quadrio Curzio Family Trust), Amy Towers (The Nduna Foundation), Shannon Sedgwick Davis (The Bridgeway Foundation) and Marieke van Schaik (Dutch Postcode Lottery). Mabel van Oranje, former CEO of The Elders, sits on the Advisory Council in her capacity as Advisory Committee Chair of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage.[13]

The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health

Machel has been the Board Chair of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH) since 2013. PMNCH is a multi-constituency partnership hosted by the World Health Organization and seeks to achieve universal access to comprehensive, high-quality reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health care. The Partnership plays a central role in facilitating joint action on many fronts, mainly progress towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5, to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health, as tracked by the Countdown to 2015 initiative, and through support for the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health (Global Strategy) and Every Woman Every Child.[14]

The Africa Progress Panel

Machel is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. Every year, the Panel releases a report, the Africa Progress Report, that outlines an issue of immediate importance to the continent and suggests a set of associated policies. In 2012, the Africa Progress Report highlighted issues of Jobs, Justice, and Equity.[15] The 2013 report will outline issues relating to oil, gas, and mining in Africa.

Notes

  1. ↑ Other women have been the consort in two separate monarchies. For example, Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122?–1204) was queen consort of France and later of England.

References

  1. ↑ Guinness World Records. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Impact of Armed Conflict on Children. Unicef.org. Retrieved on 2011-11-07.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Graça Machel (Mozambique) at the Wayback Machine (archived July 4, 2011). United Nations Foundation profile
  7. ↑ http://www.unhcr.org/nansen/50374dc66.html
  8. ↑ http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/22/umass_honors_nelson_mandela_with_honorary_degree/?page=full
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ http://africaprogresspanel.org/en/publications/annual-reports/annual-report-2012/

External links

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