Graça Machel

Graça Simbine was born 17 days after her father's death, the youngest of six 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 also speaks French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English, as well as her native Shangaan language. Simbine returned to Portuguese East Africa in 1973, joining the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) and working as a schoolteacher.

Following Mozambique's independence in 1975, Simbine was appointed Minister for Education and Culture. She married Mozambican first president Samora Machel that same year, changing her last name to Machel. 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.

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

In 1998, Machel 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.

Machel has been chancellor of the University of Cape Town since 1999. She was named president of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in 2012. In 2016, Machel was named Chancellor of the African Leadership University, a role that she still holds today.

Simbine married Samora Machel, the first President of Mozambique, in 1975. They had two children together: Josina and Malengani. Samora Machel died in a plane crash in South Africa in 1986.

Graça Machel married her second husband, Nelson Mandela, in Johannesburg on 18 July 1998, Mandela's 80th birthday. At the time, Mandela was serving as the first post-apartheid president of South Africa. Mandela died of pneumonia on 5 December 2013.

• Mozambican Minister for Education and Culture (1975-1989)
• Chairman of National Organization of Children of Mozambique
• Delegate to 1998 UNICEF conference in Zimbabwe
• President of National Commission of UNESCO
• Member of Commonwealth of Nations' Eminent Persons Group
• Member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation's Ibrahim Prize Committee
• Chancellor of the African Leadership University

• InterAction's humanitarian award, 1997
• Received major award from CARE as result-longstanding work on behalf of children
• Named "Decade Child Rights Hero" together with 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
• Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the request of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
• Honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Massachusetts in 2006.
• Received the World’s Children’s Prize in 2005, together with Nelson Mandela
• Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) Honoris Causa in March 2008, from the University of Stellenbosch.

On 18 July 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu convened The Elders. Mandela announced its formation in a speech on his 89th birthday. The group works 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.

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.

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.