Sheila Violet Makate Sisulu

Sheila Violet Makate Sisulu (née Mashile; born April 12, 1948, in Johannesburg ) is a South African civil rights activist and former diplomat. Since 2003, she has been working for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

Early years and anti-apartheid activism Sheila Sisulu grew up in Soweto, where her parents ran a shop. During her childhood, the apartheid system was being increasingly entrenched through legislation in South Africa. In 1955, a segregated education system was implemented across the country. Shortly after Sisulu started school, her older brother, an anti-apartheid activist, warned their parents that soldiers and police would raid the township. As a result, her parents kept her at home. The police ordered that all students who missed school that day would not be allowed to return. It took six months before she was permitted to re-enroll.

At the age of twelve, Sisulu was harassed by a teacher, prompting her parents to send her to a girls' boarding school in Swaziland. There, she received a solid education based on the British system. When she returned to South Africa during summer vacations, she felt the impact of apartheid even more acutely. On her 16th birthday, she received a pass book, which all Black South Africans were required to carry for identification purposes. She later recalled that “… to have it was to identify me as a second-class citizen in the country of my birth.” From 1994 to 1997, she served as an advisor to the Minister of Education. In 1997, she was appointed South Africa’s Consul General in Washington, D.C., tasked with attracting foreign investors to South Africa. Two years later, she became Ambassador to the United States, becoming South Africa’s first Black ambassador to the U.S.

From 2003, Sisulu served as the World Food Programme's Deputy Director for Policy and External Affairs. In 2008, she became Deputy Director for Hunger Solutions.

Awards In 1993, Sisulu received the Nedbank Femina Award, followed by the South African Women for Women Education Award in 1998.

Personal life Her husband, Mlungisi Sisulu, worked for the ANC in Orlando West, Soweto, after 1994 and ran a retail business there until his death. He died from cancer on October 13, 2015 in Johannesburg. She has a son, Linda, and two daughters, Boitumelo and Ntsiki - Nontsikilelo Sisulu-Singapi, a board member of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.