This is a conversation about female role models, overcoming and legacy. Graça Machel is a reference for thousands of Mozambican girls and women. An activist for women and children rights, in 1994 she founded FDC, a Foundation for the Development of the Community, which she presides and in 2010 founded the Graça Machel Trust. Besides all that, she’s part of the organization “The Elders”, a group of international leaders, committed to world peace and democracy, using their responsibility and experience to defend the future of the planet and future generations. But the life and history of Graça Machel is not only about successes and conquers. Behind that is a long way made of adversities but also opportunities, challenges and people who shaped their choices.

“I was born three weeks after the death of my father and I was raised by my mother, and I have as a second mother an older sister.” To Graça Machel, they represent “(…) the strength of women, of women being able to surpass the biggest challenges.” Graça is the youngest of six. She grew up in a family with little financial resources but rich in solidarity and generosity. And it was such richness that dictate who she wanted to be and to do.

“It’s not our origin that will determine what you will  transform yourself into in life.”

Graça, a “mamã full of Grace”, as the Girls sing in a song they dedicate to her in this conversation, talks about her path, the opportunities she had, how she grabbed and transformed  them, and how they ended up transforming her.

“My passion about working with women and children came exactly from my experience when I became Minister of Education and right away I realized girls are disadvantaged. We can't treat girls and boys the same way, though they are equal, we have to pay special attention to girls, because they have bigger challenges to assert themselves (...). That’s why still today I work with women, young women and children.”

It has been a full journey. Full of surprises, challenges, expectations and also disappointments.

“(…) I have to recognize there are still millions who haven’t yet reached the place I was seventy years ago, and that’s a big sorrow for me. Because the transformations I dreamt of, I’m now understanding they will not happen, at its fullest, in my lifetime.”

And this acknowledgement took her to the legacy and responsibility she sees and recognizes in these girls as Changemakers.

“And this experience with Girl MOVE, I think it gives you the opportunity to gain wings and be able to fly, and fly like eagles, that fly very high. (…) And more, when they decide to land, they choose (...). You have the possibility to choose where you will land. “

POWER OF CHOICE. A superpower and a privilege few women have in Mozambique and in so many other places in the world and it’s needed to keep fighting and working everyday to accomplish it. That’s why this privilege, according to Graça Machel, comes connected to a life commitment.

“(…) so that when you reach my age no more girls are forced to engage in a union they didn’t choose. So that no more girls turn fifteen years old without knowing how to read or write. So that no more girls start primary school without being able to finish the secondary school and chose if she wants to go to a University or a Technical Institute. So that one day, every girl is able to decide for herself.”

Grab the opportunities and take advantage to the power of choice.

“This experience with Girl MOVE, I think it gives you the opportunity to gain wings and be able to fly, and fly like eagles that fly very high. (...) even if there are strong winds, even if it rains, you are resilient enough to go where they want to go. And more, when they decide to land, they choose, and that’s another point. You have the possibility to choose where you will land.”

According to Graça Machel, transformation is not an abstract or megalomaniac concept. It’s something that happens everyday, with small actions which have a huge impact. But for that you have to recognize and undertake the power to transform!

“If you transform girls like you already do, each of those girls will double their seeds. In their own lives, their own careers, their own families. There is no better investment a society can make than to invest in its girls. So, yes, you are the seed! You have dreams. You have talent. And recognize the power that you have. So, multiply that, so that in your lifetime, in one generation, Mozambique doesn't have any more oppressed girls. “

And according to Graça Machel, we all have one. Although in this conversation Graça has very clearly passed the torch to these mozambican women, the truth is the mamã’s “advise” stands across, to anyone despite gender, culture or geography, and it can be sum up to this question:

“How can you contribute to amplify, extend, those opportunities you already have? Look at yourselves as the seed. You have to grow, blossom, you have to transform it into a dense tree, with many diverse and tasteful fruits.

It’s such diversity of talent and perspective that will bring innovation and economic and social development to any country. But Graça Machel defends this will be much greater if it comes followed by an investment in education and mentorship for young women because they’re the real seed of transformation.