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tv   Inside Story  Al Jazeera  December 25, 2015 11:30pm-12:01am EST

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saying: no word on who he was trying to call. he was the first as trow nought from britain on the space station. ray suarez is up next with "inside story". thanks for watching. rasta michelle was a school teacher, minister of education in mozambique. on this insiders edition of "inside story", a talk with the widow of nelson mandela, a long-time fighter for the rights of women and girls, who at 69 years old says she has plenty of work to do. grassa michelle is the
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"inside story". welcome to "inside story," i'm ray suarez. grassa michelle was born in portuguese east africa, a part of the continent dominated by european columnists for 500 years. as a university student, she joined the independence struggle and went on to life a life impossible to imagine for most women in africa. more than a decade as a cabinet minister, wife to two presidents. and nelson mandela of south africa. that makes her the first woman to be first lady of two different countries. today she runs the grassa michelle trust, working to further the rites of women and africa. >> this year we present the
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michelle. >> we met at a world forum in oxford, u.k., where michelle was awarded the scol global treasure award. i spoke to her and the c.e.o. of the skol foundation. i started with a simple foundation - does she really have a job? as i was looking over everything you have been doing for the last 20 years, and all the different projects you've been involved in, i'm wondering if in the 21st century, if someone asks you what's your job, do you have a job, or too many jobs point? >> i think i have too many jobs and it has been part of my life to be somehow engaged in different fields. in recent years, i am focussing
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on building the capacity of institutions established so that they can survive my life-time, to be sustainable. the issues i'm concerned with are exactly the same child rights, women's right. i want the institutions i establish to be solid, to be able to continue to work even when i'm not here. this is one. the second is i'm concerned with the transforming the initiatives involved into movements, which can survive again. so in child rights i'm building a movement on nutrition. i'm building a movement on
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education, girl's education as a preventive measure against child marriage. i'm building a movement on women, economic advancement. women in finance, women in afghanistanry business, women -- agri business, and women in different sexes of the economy. that's where i believe we have not done enough. we have not managed to get so much success. >> women are of tremendous economic actors in local marketplaces. that women who are better educated become more effective economic actors, that women who are more educated keep their families healthy, yet you have to push and institution build against entrenched forces that
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don't easily say you are right, let's do this. why is that? >> in general, government are easy to make political statements, and to make public commitments. but to transform this into policy, into strategies, and plans, which are implement able, mash usualable -- measurable, it has been a challenge. we need to continue to work with the government, because they are the first responsible for using the public resources for public good. civil society can support and will always support, but it
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government. >> let's say the government says madam michelle, you are absolutely right. so we go and say women shouldn't get married too young, but village head-men and the women that are married young themselves, and still dress up the bride, support her as a young bride. that's who you really have to convince, isn't it, not the minister of planning in the capital. we have to talk about our approach - it is that you have to ring around the same table, government officials. when i say government officials, i don't mean ministers of education, i mean ministers of finance, ministers of gender and community development, ministers of health have to sit around the table to discuss girls' development.
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you need to bring local leaders, whether it's a district or it's a village. sit around, and discuss the same issue with them. you need to discuss with traditional leaders, religious leaders, that women's movement, youth movement, engage families where there is family association, friendships, those able to knock at the door of every family and get the message across. it is not an issue only of resources. it is an issue of changing tradition, sometimes beliefs, practices which have been there for centuries, and changing this, it's requires a long and extensive discussion in which you have to prove the child marriage, a girl who gets
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married at age of 8, 9, 10 - it's harmful to her, it's harmful to family, it's harmful nation. >> is there a way of knowing whether it's working, which arts are most effective, what you are trying to get down to village level, down level, street level. which arguments are the winners, which makes parents say you know, you are right, i got married too young, maybe i want daughter. >> sometimes you have to use statistician of showing how many young women or those who are girls, when they get married, die at birth. how many who may not die, but they are children, they also die. if you use this, life is something which is precious to anyone, and people will understand that there's nothing
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which can justify that a child should die, or a mother, a young mother should die. this is kind of an argument. but you can also use examples in communities. you show women who are teachers to women who are nurses, who have made it through education to have a provision. how their lives have changed. how they are better off compared with other women to say if your child grows, goes to school, has a profession, can work, can be like x who is a professor, you need to use examples which make sense for them to see, and as sort of evidence. but you also need to give to families some kind of alternative. that is why it's not an education issue alone. you are meant to bring organizations which are working in development activities to help families to generate
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income, so that they don't see the girl child is a commodity, which you give away because you'll get money or you'll get capital as an exchange. you explain the message, you show the results of what education can do to a young woman. at the same time you develop the ability of families to survive, without considering giving away resources. there are different strategies which we have to use, it's not a single direction in which you can fight against child marriage. it is really multiple strategies, that's why we always try to build these alliances. in which people can discuss, can challenge themselves. we challenged and sometimes we
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have to bring people who are experts, who can help to put things in much more detailed way, which prove the benefits of educating girls. it is a long and complex process when we return, more of my conversation with grassa michelle, the former first lady of south africa and mozambique, and we talk about a disruptive course to change. >> i work with communities, and within communities, with social networks, which are the ones who know better their realities, otherwise have the right communication request members of the communities. i hope the 1 to drive change.
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back now to be conversation with graca machel. she was in behind to receive the scol global treasure award in recognition of her advocacy of women's and children's rites. joining our conversation is sally osburg the c.e.o. of the foundation, founding and encouraging social change and problem entrepreneursh entrepreneurship. she tells us why it is a disruptive force, and how it's needed now, more than ever. what is is it? >> social
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entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs disrupting the equill ibrya in our societies. that sound fancy, but they are working on the issues that graca machel described - issues of child nutrition, issues of child mortality, issues of child empower. and education. heath access and equity. all those issues come together for social entrepreneurs. they find innovative solutions that often have at their heart partnership and collaboration with the communities they serve. >> how does that differ from the aid model we are familiar with and why do you find it more preferable than the aid model. >> that is a politically charged question. i think after the world war ii,
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we actually developed a model development that served us well through the martial plan, but put in place a paradigm that has come to be highly formed. this paradigm looks at technocratic solutions that can be delivered top down to the west to the developing world and ultimately communities had no stake in their solutions. i could rattle off a number of social entrepreneurs working in every field that see the collateral damage in many places, but also the waste and lack of evocation in the solutions. not because people aren't well intended or they don't want the same kind of benefits, but they parachute in with the models, whether it's a new approach to drilling wells or a school, we can count the number of schools over the developing world, that don't have teachers and books,
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or the operating apparatus that they need to deliver education to students. we can see in the health systems, the lack of attention to transportation, to deliver health benefits. so they - the social entrepreneurs are fighting on two fronds, for the empower the of communities and solid arties of working with the families, the communities to solve the problem that is theirs to solve, age, recognise and theirs to solve, and they are fighting a system of development imposing solutions on them without including them. >> graca machel, you are one the mothers of the nation, with ministers and early government. you have the portuguese to go home after four centuries. countries like mozambique were flooded with aid for decades after the liberation studies
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were over, after decolonization was over. were there short comings in that entrepreneurs. social entrepreneurs. >> absolutely. i can say it was not only the global agencies which supported mozambique, we as soon as also, as a government. member of government at the beginning. we thought we'd solve the problem. we didn't engage communities enough in terms of reflecting the issues. helping them to prioritise, know this if they had 100 needs, what are the strategic ones they start with to have a multiplying effect to solve the others. this is the lessons we have learnt, i have learnt, and
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that's why in the last part of my life i'm committed to work with communities, and within communities, with social networks, which are the ones who no better their realities, they are the ones with the right communications with members of the communities. are the one who have to drive change. we simply facilitate, we bring additional resources. sometimes new ideas to offer for them to make an option, but there is definitely a changing of how do you know when it's going to develop. you develop yourself as an individual, as a community, and if it goes to global countries have to develop themselves. so these are lessons which have come from experience, actually. it's not fear from experience. when i left the government and
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established community development, it was precisely to change the paradigm of how i participate in society. >> at the beginning of society i you talked about the different things you are doing. you've been at this for 40 years, are there points you say "i got to let one of these things go or i got put someone else in charge or i have to stop flying this 8,000 mile trip that i take once every six weeks, i just got to slow down." >> not yet. whenever you challenged with the type of struggles communities are facing, you sit with them. you see the determination of those women and men. you see the determination of young people. you see children who are really coming up with ideas and
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creative ways of solutions. you simply cannot have the luxury of going back home and job." >> graca machel said she'll never step down from her work, but will slow down when her body tells her it's time. when we return, i asker why change is so hard to accomplish in the countries where she
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worked. back to my conversation with graca machel. mozambique said and south africa's former first lady. she was on the scene in both countries when they experienced major upheaval, explains why
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change is hard to do, and why the next south african leaders are well prepared to connect to the global community i wanted to take you to mozambique in the 1970s, south africa in the mid-1990s, after liberation, there were so many things to be done. everywhere you looked things needed doing. we are now 40 years into mozambique's story. 20 years into south africa's post-liberation story. do you look back now, ever, with regret? do you see mistakes that were instead even mistakes that were made by yourself in hope, in a forward-looking view of the country, but you didn't know then what you know now. are those countries that you know so intimately, that you had the rare opportunity to know so
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intimately way? >> the results of these 40 years from mozambique and 20 for south africa are mixed. we managed - i think the best of investment we have made along these years, it was empowering the young people. you have now generations of young people who connect with the global communities, and keep things going. what they do know is a better viewpoint into the system, the institutions we have there. i think you go to mozambique, you'll find a bubbling of young people.
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i think the model, i think we are not allowing stakeholders to regularly sit around and even expecting parliament to be - payment dialogue. their occupying positions, they constantly take advice support recommendations and implement people's aspirations, and if you talk of future, if they don't have a future in which to shape the future. they don't have space in which they meaning fully participate. we can talk about the future. they are doing well to develop,
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and we need to change the way institutions are shaped, and the way institutions. people need to be decision making. as to be sure on people's aspirations at a given time. >> just one government. there may be thousands of social entrepreneurs. do they teach about their work? >> an example? take rwanda 20 years back. i visited rwanda four months after the genocide. i don't think i can describe what i have gone through. travelling in
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those. the country was at a level that no one could describe. 20 years later. they managed movement to bring together all stakeholders to face the consequences of genocide, to design the work to the end. i'm saying the change which has happened in 20 years. many governments in our continent who have become independent 50 years, and where that's been for 40 years. >> graca machel of the graca machel trust,
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and now skol global treasure award winner, great to have you n "inside story". and sally good to see you our thanks to the skol foundation and c.e.o. sally osburg for their help, and congratulations to graca machel for winning the skol treasure arure award, when we return i'll have final thoughts on graca machel, africa and liberation.
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minister of education, graca machel married the president of newly liberated mozambique in
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1975. after a threw out its portuguese colonial masters mozambique declared itself a marxist leninist state making friends in moscow and other capitals. it was fascinating 40 years later to hear this woman talk about social envery presentureship, and not believing the government could solve all problems. africa changed and so has graca machel. development was shaped and stunted by the cold war after country after colonial pasts looked for friends, east and west. power comes from ballots, not bullets. urging them on is a former revolutionary, graca machel. i'm ray suarez, join us for the next "inside story".
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♪ one of the syria's most powerful rebel leaders is killed by an air strike. ♪ ♪ you are watching or live from doha. coming up in the next half hour. the first visit to pakistan by an indian prime minister in a decade. more than 100,000 people are forceed from their homes by severe flooding in south america. plus. >> no place to call home. aid adam raney on a camp on at haitian-dominican border where hundreds of people have settled after

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