Graça Machel, DBE (born Graça Simbine on 17th October 1945 in Incadine, Gaza Province, Mozambique) is the wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the widow of the late Mozambican president Samora Machel, who died in a plane crash over South Africa in 1986. She is the only woman to have been married to the presidents of two different nations, at different times. She is an international advocate for women’s and children’s rights.
Born in rural Mozambique she 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 university, 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.
Following Mozambique independence in 1975, Machel was appointed Minister for Education and Culture. She married Samora Machel the same year. Following her retirement from the Mozambique ministry, Machel was appointed as the expert 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 when she married Nelson Mandela.
In 1998 she was one of the two winners of the North-South Prize
