22 quotes
If we are here in solidarity, with this beauty of unity, in our pain, we have to pledge to do something.
A mother in pain: Graça Machel speaks on the gender based violence and xenophobia (2026)
The role tradition has played in the relationship in the family between men and women has been detrimental to women.
Graca Machel: Traditional practices put women in positions of inferiority (2009)
Education, particularly for girls, is a catalyst for reducing child and maternal deaths and lifting people out of poverty.
We need to make the message much clearer -- that aid means saving lives, it’s not a luxury.
West must help Africa on poverty, education: Machel (2009)
Tradition has developed into practices which overtime have become beliefs which in essence they put women in a position of inferiority.
Graca Machel: Traditional practices put women in positions of inferiority (2009)
“When you educate a girl, you educate a nation.”
We have the knowledge, the technology. [But] even the resources which are necessary to invest in rural areas are not as big as the terrible things people are doing to destroy the environment.
Graça Machel: 'We Are Not Doing Enough' to End World Hunger (2026)
Tradition has developed a hierarchy in relationship between men and women that leads to discrimination.
Graca Machel: Traditional practices put women in positions of inferiority (2009)
The developed world needs to feel that these huge levels of poverty (are) a threat to their own security. When their interests are at risk, money can be found.
West must help Africa on poverty, education: Machel (2009)
It is not just fear of a husband that makes a woman bow to these traditions. They are ingrained in her from her upbringing, the women learn to accept as if it's normal.
Graça Machel: We continue to fight (2012)
As I stand here this morning, every minute children are dying in Africa and Asia from malnutrition.
Graça Machel: 'We Are Not Doing Enough' to End World Hunger (2026)
The problem is not the consequences of what’s happening, it’s the root causes of why and how we got where we are as a society.”
We have to change our mindsets, our behaviours, our value system.
Women are not children; they are adults that know what they want to do. They should be recognised with their dignity and to start a business whenever they feel like it.
Celebrating powerful women: there is enough on the table for all of us (2020)
African women need to be in the driving seat of national discourse,women need to be at the centre of our economies,they must also pro-actively seek to correct the status quo.
Graça Machel: Women Must Redesign the table, and not just expect to be at the table (2018)
We are a society where women, and children by the way, are not safe anywhere. Something absolutely and deeply wrong is happening in our society.
Investing in education from early childhood has a lasting effect on the survival, development, protection and active participation of children in social, economic and political activities.
We are not doing enough on the pace and level of investment and we're not going to get there
Graça Machel: 'We Are Not Doing Enough' to End World Hunger (2026)
To ensure that we achieve the goals for our development by 2063 we need to fully invest in and optimize of the continent’s other half which for too long has been neglected: the African female.
What they have taught me and what I take from their lives is this real ability to go beyond yourself and to dedicate your life to the common good, to create spaces and opportunities for freedom for all.
Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, says global leadership during the pandemic has been 'inadequate (2020)