Zanele Dlamini Mbeki

Zanele Mbeki OMSS (née Dlamini; born 18 November 1938) is a feminist South African social worker who founded the Women's Development Bank. She is also a former first lady of South Africa.

Early life and education Zanele Dlamini was born in 1938 in Alexandra, South Africa, where her father was a Methodist priest and her mother a dressmaker. She has five sisters.

Zanele was a boarder at the Catholic Inkamana Academy in KwaZulu-Natal, before studying to be a social worker at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Career While in London, Mbeki worked as a psychiatric social worker at Guy's Hospital, and at the Marlborough Day Hospital. shortly before it was closed down after the exposure of her boss, Craig Williamson, as a South African spy. When her husband became President in 1999, she became First Lady of South Africa. She is a feminist and an advocate for women's rights. In July 2003, she convened the South African Women in Dialogue, designed to enable women to participate fully in the country's development.

Personal life Mbeki met Thabo Mbeki while studying at the University of London and they were married in a registry office in London on 23 November 1974, followed by a religious ceremony at the home of her older sister Edith, Farnham Castle in Surrey. The couple have no children and have often lived apart.