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Graça Machel

Mozambique

Mrs. Graça Machel is a renowned international advocate for women and children’s rights and has been a social and political activist over many decades. She is a former freedom fighter and was the first Education Minister of Mozambique. She currently serves in various capacities in several organizations, among them the Elders, the Africa Progress Panel, and the UN Secretary General Millennium Development Goals Advocates Group. She is also an Eminent Person of the GAVI Alliance and the UN Foundation, Chair of the Board of the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes and Chancellor of the University of Cape Town and President of the Foundation for Community Development. As Founder of the recently established Graça Machel Trust, she has focused more recently on advocating for an end to child marriage, addressing food security and nutrition as a development priority, and justice and appropriate reparation for the victims of large sexual violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. She has been ranked among the top 100 women: activists and campaigners (The Guardian 2011) and the top 100 most influential people (TIME 2010).