page_title: Graça Machel
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Graça Machel / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: President Obama greets Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's widow, after his speech at the memorial service. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
context_page_description: Graça Machel DBE HonFBA is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian. She is the widow of both former presidents of Mozambique and South Africa; Mozambican president Samora Machel and South African president Nelson Mandela. Machel is an international advocate for women's and children's rights and was made an honorary British Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 for her humanitarian work. She is the only woman in modern history to have served as First Lady of two countries.
  Graça Machel is a member of the Africa Progress Panel, a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. As a panel member she facilitates coalition building to leverage and broker knowledge, and convenes decision-makers to influence policy for lasting change in Africa.
  She was chancellor of the University of Cape Town between 1999 and 2019.
context_section_description: Simbine married Samora Machel, the first president of Mozambique, in 1975. Together they had two children: daughter Josina (born April 1976) and son Malengane (born December 1978). Samora Machel died in office in 1986 when his presidential aircraft crashed near the Mozambique-South Africa border.
  Graça Machel Mandela 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.
caption: US President Barack Obama greets Graça Machel at the memorial service for her late husband Nelson Mandela, Johannesburg, 2013
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