On Collective Strength: Melinda French Gates in Conversation with Graça Machel

Were you outspoken? Were you shy? Did you read? No, no, I have never been shy. I didn't think so. No, I wasn't shy. So, Graca, can you say a little bit about what made you decide to become such a strong advocate for women and girls? Like, was there a moment? Was there something you saw? Did you grow into this role? I grew into this role. It comes as my life experience. I came to understand that girls are dropping out of schools massively, and I had to understand what's happening. And so my interest for girls, it was in the context of education first. Then we had this conflict in Mozambique, and not only all children, but especially girls, I was very attentive to see how it impacts on them. And children and girls in situation of conflict, it struck again. In even issues of poverty, girls pay a very high price. Women pay a very high price. So you feel like I have to do something, and not only to do something, then you understand it is an issue of justice. It's injustice against girls, adolescents, and women. And of course, you can't put up with injustice, can you? Even in terms of voice, I was part of those women who were really campaigning for women in position of power, whether it's ministers, whether it's parliamentarians, whether it's in judiciary, they have to be a voice of the millions, right? And recently, that's when I wake up and say, wait a second, it looks like we are missing a very important issue here. It's women in the economy. They are left out. I mean, do you think it's because also there hadn't been very many female economists in the right? Women were locked out of economics. And when they got in, they sort of became normalized to look at the male issues. Is that how you see it? Or do you see it in a different way? And the issue is, you know, many organizations tend to work with the women as individuals. My approach always, perhaps it's a result of my experience when I became minister, I learned to believe and to work through collectives, going through, knowing deeply what are the barriers, which I know you are very concerned with this. You have been, what are the barriers, how to remove them? But only a collective can remove barriers. Individuals alone, they can't do it. And do you find that women find power together in a collective? Have you seen that? Women have power in them. And sometimes we're being a little bit arrogant to say we empower women. Exactly what we are doing, we stimulate, we ignite the power in them and they unleash the power. But the power is with them. We facilitate a process in which that power can then burst and become really the movement, particularly when they are working collectively. All over Africa, in India, the women in India said, I couldn't get anything done in my household by myself. But when I came together with other women in the community and we could stand together and then people started to recognize us, to know our names, and we could ask for our rights. And now you see it at the board level, right? Like one woman in a boardroom doesn't make a difference, but multiple. Absolutely. If we went back and asked your parents or your siblings what a young Grasso was like, were you outspoken? Were you shy? Did you read? No, no, I have never been shy. I didn't think so. No, I wasn't. I wasn't shy. And I have really to recognize my mother and my siblings. I just want to remind you that I'm the youngest of all my siblings. And my mother and my siblings really embraced me. They gave me a lot of love. I was very well nurtured as a child and encouraged to be myself. So it is an environment which was very conducive for me to see, oh, I can do things. Those little things, which were part of my childhood, have helped me to be outspoken. And perhaps that's why whenever I have an opportunity, I speak my mind. Thank goodness they encourage you to speak your mind. What do you look for? You talked earlier today a bit about how, okay, there's the generation behind you. When you see those young advocates, young men or young women, what do you look for in those leaders to know, hey, they're going to grow up and really be a strong advocate? Our major problem on this continent is how do you take this very global and very important issues then to be, to transform into practice at a family level, at a community level. So our young activists, whenever we are together, I'm saying, you know what, you really have to build the bridge, sit with the girls, sit with the women, sit with the traditional leaders, religious leaders. The communities have to internalize this and hopefully they will own those values. The reason I'm saying this is because our young activists, they have somehow much better conditions than we had in our time because now they have technology, they can communicate quickly. But in Africa, we are still of oral tradition. You need to combine the technology, the ability to communicate with the thousands and millions in one second. The success will happen when it is broadly owned by communities themselves to get to a point where parents will never think that has to give away his daughter. You see, it takes time, but it will get there. People will understand. Again, I'm saying they have to own it. It's not because Melinda said it's good. It is very important. Your presence here has a huge, huge impact. Those girls, those women, they know you could be sitting in the U.S. doing whatever you do, which is very important. But you took the time, you came, you went to Malawi, you sat with them, you asked questions, you valued them. And this is the importance of we, women. Definitely. We women, we do those things. I don't think men will take time to be sitting with the activists in a village, etc. But you know how important this is. You and I had met, as you said, here in 1997 in South Africa, actually around HIV AIDS with Madiba. But it wasn't until you took me out in Mozambique. That's when I knew, that's when I saw the power of the work that you do. You taught me to go out in community. And then the last thing I'll say is I was in West Africa one time trying to learn from a group of women. And in this case, we were talking about contraceptives. They knew all about them. They were outraged. They weren't in stock. But when I said to them there was a new contraceptive and they were using it, will other women hear about this? And they looked at me like I was crazy. And they said, well, of course other women are going to learn. We talk. We talk when we ground millet. We talk when we cook. We talk at the birth of a child. We talk at the well. We spread information. And that's the power of an oral network community. Exactly. They build the connection to say, it is something I yearn to have. You also, and they realize we are a hundred of us and it builds the power. It builds the power.