Personal life

She was born 17 days after her father's death, youngest of 6 children, 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. 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 Rolihlahla Mandela, in Johannesburg on 18 July 1998, his 80th birthday. Mandela died on 5 December 2013 after a long sickbed involving pneumonia, and, not so well known to most people, is that Mandela had suffered from prostate cancer since the age of 76. His condition worsened until his death.

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

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.

Positions and awards

• President School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
• Chancellor, African Leadership University
• Former Mozambican Minister for Education and Culture (1975-1989)
• Chairman of National Organization of Children of Mozambique
• Organization that places orphans in village homes
• Works closely with families to rehabilitate children
• Delegate to 1998 UNICEF conference in Zimbabwe
• President of National Commission of UNESCO
• Member of Commonwealth of Nations' Eminent Persons Group
• Served international steering committee 1990 World Conference on Education for All
• Appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to chair a study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children
• Recipient of InterAction's humanitarian award 1997
• Received major award from CARE as result-longstanding work on behalf of children
• She won the Nansen Refugee Award, awarded by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees for her humanitarian work.
• Machel is also a member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation's Ibrahim Prize Committee
• Chancellor of the University of Cape Town
• Named "Decade Child Rights Hero" together with her husband Nelson Mandela (watch here) by 7.1 million children through a Global Vote, organized as part of the educational World’s Children’s Prize Program
• Doutora Honoris Causa by University of Évora, Portugal, 14 November 2008
• On 28 August 2007 Graça Machel was made an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the request of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
• Conferred an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Massachusetts in 2006.
• Received the World’s Children’s Prize in 2005, together with her husband Nelson Mandela
• Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) Honoris Causa in March 2008, from the University of Stellenbosch.
• Currently the Chancellor of the African Leadership University, a new Pan-African University founded by a Ghanaian entrepreneur, Fred Swaniker.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. The 2013 report will outline issues relating to oil, gas, and mining in Africa.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]