General
Graça Machel, the renowned humanitarian and activist, is to be the new president of the School of Oriental and African Studie at the University of London.
Machel, a former minister of education in Mozambique who is the wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, takes over from Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, who held the role for 10 years.
“This is an immensely proud moment for SOAS,” said Dr Tim Miller, chair of the SOAS governing body, when the appointment was announced on 23 April.
“Mrs Machel is highly regarded as an international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and for her work as a social and political activist. Her achievements are prolific and she is a huge inspiration to many, including our own staff and students.”
Machel said: “It is a great honour to accept the position of president of SOAS.
"SOAS is a highly regarded international institution whose alumni include many students who have gone on to become activists and leaders in economic, political and social change throughout the world. I look forward to making a modest contribution to the outstanding work of SOAS.”
Machel was born in Mozambique where she served as minister of education and culture from 1975-89. She is currently chancellor of the University of Cape Town and chair of the Leadership Council for the Campaign to End Paediatric HIV-Aids.
As president, Machel will preside over graduation and other ceremonies and act as an ambassador for SOAS.
Machel has an outstanding record in children’s rights and development. As education minister in Mozambique she led the drive to increase primary school enrolment, and saw it jump from 40% of children in 1975 to 90% of boys and 75% of girls by the end of her term in office in 1989.
She is one of the founders of the Forum of African Women Educationalists, an advocacy network that has campaigned to promote girls’ education and empower girls and women across the continent.
In 1994 Machel was invited by the UN Secretary General to assess the impact of armed conflict on children.
Her ground-breaking report set a new agenda for humanitarian action and inspired the establishment of a UN Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism to track violations such as the killing and maiming of children, recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on schools, and a regime of UN Security Council action against offending parties.
In particular her report has inspired concerted efforts by UN agencies and NGOs to secure the disarmament, demobilisation, and rehabilitation into society of child soldiers.
SOAS director Professor Paul Webley said: “Graça Machel is a wonderful role model for young people. Her education and humanitarian work very much fits with the values and mission of SOAS and we are honoured to have her as our president.”
A former freedom fighter, Machel joined the Mozambican Liberation Front in 1973 as a school teacher. When Mozambique gained its independence two years later, she became the country’s first minister of education and culture – the only woman in the cabinet.
As chair of the National Organisation of Children of Mozambique, she has also worked closely with families to promote literacy and rehabilitate children affected by the country’s long civil war.
Machel was also chair of the GAVI Alliance, which coordinates international efforts to widen child immunisation, for almost a decade and has served as an Eminent Person of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
More recently, she founded the Institute for Child Development (Zizile IDC) to focus on early childhood development. She is a co-founder of the Mandela Institute for Development Studies (MINDS) and founded the Graça Machel Trust, an organisation that advocates for the rights of women and children on the continent, as well as good governance and democracy.
With her husband, she is a founding member of the Elders, a group of global leaders advocating good governance, human rights and development in Africa. With fellow members Lakhdar Brahimi, Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, she visited Darfur in 2007 in an attempt to highlight the issue of rape and gender-based violence in the region.
In November 2008 she attempted to visit Zimbabwe with her fellow Elders to draw attention to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country.
“Either the leadership doesn’t have a clear picture of how deep the suffering is of their own people,” she told journalists in Johannesburg after the Elders were refused entry to the country, “or they don’t care.”
Machel and SOAS are well suited to each other.
SOAS is the only higher education institution in the UK specialising in the study of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East and claims to have a larger number of specialist staff concerned with the study of these regions “than any other university in the world”.
Its scholars focus on pressing issues – democracy, development, human rights, identity, legal systems, poverty, religion, social change – confronting two-thirds of humankind.