Machel, Graça (1945-…), a Mozambican advocate for children’s rights, became world famous for her crusading work to help the women and children of Mozambique whose lives were ruined by the violent struggle for democracy there. In particular, she became actively involved in the rehabilitation of children caught up in Mozambique’s civil war in the late 1980’s.
About 250,000 children became orphans as a result of this conflict in Mozambique. Graça Machel organized a national government program to reunite them with surviving relatives or place them in foster homes. She continued throughout the 1990’s to run a program to bring back into ordinary society those children who had fought in the conflicts as soldiers. Her work was recognized when she was made president of a committee directing an aid program for Africa organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Graça Simbine was born on Oct. 17, 1945, in a tiny village about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from what is now Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. She studied languages at Lisbon University in Portugal, the country that ruled Mozambique as a colony up to 1974. She joined Frelimo (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) and fought for Mozambican independence. In 1973, she met Samora Machel (1933-1986), the leader of Frelimo who served as president of Mozambique after it became an independent state. They married in 1975.
Graça Machel played an important role in Mozambique’s government, serving for a time as her country’s education and culture minister. She ordered the building of new schools and raised the proportion of school-age children attending school from about 40 percent to 82 percent. Many of these educational gains were lost after 1985, during the guerrilla war between the Mozambican government and the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo), a rebel movement backed by South Africa. She retained her highly respected status in Mozambique after her husband died in 1986 in a plane crash in South Africa. In 1990, she met Nelson Mandela, the president of South Africa, and they married in 1998. However, she retained her first husband’s family name and continued to spend much of her time in Mozambique and to work for UNESCO.
