Graça Machel
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Graça Machel is the widow of the late Mozambique president Samora Machel, who died in a plane crash over South Africa in 1986, and is the current wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela.
Born Graça Simbine in rural Mozambique on 23rd October 1946, Machel attended Methodist Mission schools before gaining a scholarship to attend University of Lisbon in Portugal, where she first became involved in independence issues. In that school, she got a scholarship from Romance Languages. Aside from her important foreign languages English and Portuguese, she is fluent in Spanish, Italian, and French. She returned to Mozambique in 1973, joined the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) and became a school teacher. She has something in common with Teresa Simões-Ferreira Heinz-Kerry. They were both Mozambican-born, widows (whose first husbands died in plane crash), fluent in Romance languages, and became involved in UN and politics.
Following Mozambique independence in 1975, Machel was appointed Minister for Education and Culture, although she also found the time to marry Samora Machel the same year. Following her retirement from the Mozambique ministry, Machel was placed in charge of producing the ground breaking United Nations Report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children.
Machel received the 1995 Nansen Medal from the United Nations in recognition of her longstanding humanitarian work, particularly on behalf of refugee children. She was thrust back into the international spotlight in July 1998 following her marriage to Nelson Mandela.
She is quoted as having asked, "Why is it that the worst of everything that is evil and inhuman is to be found in Africa? What is wrong with us Africans?" This is a question commonly posed by those seeking to understand the glut of humanitarian disasters plaguing the continent.
