Teresa de klerk biography for kids

As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus. Mother Teresa was fluent in five languages and traveled often. Her work quickly gained global recognition and she received many awards including:. Over the years, Mother Teresa received several honorary degrees and many more awards than those that are listed here.

In , she had another heart attack. After an attack of Pneumonia and more heart problems in , Mother Teresa offered to resign as superior general, but the sisters voted for her to stay and she agreed. Mother Teresa fell and broke her collarbone in April of In August she contracted malaria and had heart failure. Her health steadily declined and on March 13, , Mother Teresa resigned as superior general of the Missionaries of Charity.

Mother Teresa died on September 5, at the age of On September 6, , she was also chosen as the co-patron of the Archdiocese of Calcutta along with Saint Francis Xavier. Her love for the poor and the marginalized should inspire us to serve others and to find Christ even in those we consider unlovable. Love is a choice and every day, Mother Teresa chose love and service.

She made the decision to leave her family and become a nun at the young age of 18 with the desire to be a teacher. She traveled to Ireland and then later to India for her novitiate period. The order was dedicated to teaching the girls of some of the poorest Bengali families and it was here that Mother Teresa learned to speak both Hindi and Bengali.

Her hopes as a teacher was to help to eliminate the poverty of the girls through education. She continued to teach in the school and in became the school principal and she was loved by many for her kindness and devotion to education. At university, he was initiated into the Broederbond, a secret society for the Afrikaner social elite. As a student, he played both tennis and hockey and was known as "something of a ladies' man".

At the university, he began a relationship with Marike Willemse, the daughter of a professor at the University of Pretoria. The couple married in , when de Klerk was 23 and his wife After university, de Klerk pursued a legal career, becoming an articled clerk with the firm Pelser in Klerksdorp. Relocating to Pretoria, he became an articled clerk for another law firm, Mac-Robert.

In , he set up his own law partnership in Vereeniging , Transvaal, which he built into a successful business over ten years. During this period, he involved himself in a range of other activities. He was also on the council of the local technikon, on the council of his church, and on a local school board. In , his alma mater offered him a chair in its law faculty, which he accepted.

Within a matter of days he was also approached by members of the National Party, who requested that he stand for the party at Vereeniging. De Klerk's candidature was successful and in November he was elected to the House of Assembly. There, he established a reputation as a formidable debater. He took on a number of roles in the party and government.

He became the information officer of the Transvaal National Party, responsible for its propaganda output, and helped to establish a new National Party youth movement. He joined various party parliamentary study groups, including those on the Bantustans , labour, justice, and home affairs. As a member of various parliamentary groups, de Klerk went on several foreign visits, to Israel, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

It was in the latter in that he observed what he later described as the pervasive racism of US society, later noting that he "saw more racial incidents in one month there than in South Africa in a year". In South Africa, de Klerk also played a senior role in two select committees, one formulating a policy on opening hotels to non-Whites and the other formulating a new censorship law that was less strict than the one that had preceded it.

Vorster planned to promote de Klerk to the position of a deputy minister in January , but instead the job went to Andries Treurnicht.

Teresa de klerk biography for kids

In this role, he restored full autonomy to sporting control bodies which had for a time been under the jurisdiction of the government. As minister of Post and Telecommunications, he finalized contracts that oversaw the electrification of that sector. As Minister of Mining, he formalized a policy on coal exports and the structuring of Eskom and the Atomic Energy Corporation.

In , de Klerk was awarded the Decoration for Meritorious Service for his work in the government. As education minister between and , he upheld the apartheid system in South Africa's schools, and extended the department to cover all racial groups. For most of his career, de Klerk had a very conservative reputation, and was seen as someone who would obstruct change in South Africa.

He had been a forceful proponent of apartheid's system of racial segregation and was perceived as an advocate of the white minority's interests. While serving under P. Botha 's government, de Klerk was never part of Botha's inner circle. Botha resigned as leader of the National Party after an apparent stroke, and de Klerk defeated Botha's preferred successor, finance minister Barend du Plessis, in the race to succeed him.

On 2 February , he was elected leader of the National Party. He defeated main rival Barend du Plessis to the position by a majority of eight votes, 69— Soon after, he called for the introduction of a new South African constitution, hinting that it would need to provide greater concession to non-white racial groups. After becoming party leader, de Klerk extended his foreign contacts.

He travelled to London, where he met with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Although she opposed the anti-apartheid movement's calls for economic sanctions against South Africa, at the meeting she urged de Klerk to release the imprisoned anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. He also expressed a desire to meet with representatives of the US government in Washington D.

Botha resigned on 14 August , and de Klerk was named acting state president until 20 September, when he was elected to a full five-year term as state president. After he became acting president, ANC leaders spoke out against him, believing that he would be no different from his predecessors; he was widely regarded as a staunch supporter of apartheid.

The prominent anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu shared this assessment, stating: "I don't think we've got to even begin to pretend that there is any reason for thinking that we are entering a new phase. It's just musical chairs". Tutu and Allan Boesak had been planning a protest march in Cape Town , which the security chiefs wanted to prevent.

De Klerk nevertheless turned down their proposal to ban it, agreeing to let the march proceed and stating that "the door to a new South Africa is open, it is not necessary to batter it down". The march took place and was attended by approximately 30, people. Further protest marches followed in Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Durban.

De Klerk later noted that his security forces could not have prevented the marchers from gathering: "The choice, therefore, was between breaking up an illegal march with all of the attendant risks of violence and negative publicity, or of allowing the march to continue, subject to conditions that could help to avoid violence and ensure good public order.

That month, he also released a number of elderly anti-apartheid activists then imprisoned, including Walter Sisulu. He also ordered the closure of the National Security Management System. In December he visited Mandela in prison, speaking with him for three hours about the idea of transitioning away from white-minority rule. As he later related, the collapse of "the Marxist economic system in Eastern Europe Those who seek to force this failure of a system on South Africa should engage in a total revision of their point of view.

It should be clear to all that it is not the answer here either. On 2 February , in an address to the country's parliament, he introduced plans for sweeping reforms of the political system. A number of banned political parties, including the ANC and Communist Party of South Africa , would be legalized, although he emphasized that this did not constitute an endorsement of their socialist economic policies nor of violent actions carried out by their members.

All of those who were imprisoned solely for belonging to a banned organization would be freed, including Nelson Mandela; the latter was released a week later. He also announced the lifting of the Separate Amenities Act of , which governed the segregation of public facilities. The vision set forth in de Klerk's address was for South Africa to become a Western-style liberal democracy ; with a market-oriented economy which valued private enterprise and restricted the government's role in economics.

De Klerk later related that "that speech was mainly aimed at breaking our stalemate in Africa and the West. Internationally we were teetering on the edge of the abyss. Foreign press coverage was largely positive and de Klerk received messages of support from other governments. Tutu said that "It's incredible Give him credit. Give him credit, I do.

It was also received negatively by some on the white right-wing, including in the Conservative Party, who believed that de Klerk was betraying the white population. De Klerk believed that the sudden growth of the Conservatives and other white right-wing groups was a passing phase reflecting anxiety and insecurity. These white right-wing groups were aware that they would not get what they wanted through the forthcoming negotiations, and so increasingly tried to derail the negotiations using revolutionary violence.

The white-dominated liberal Democratic Party, meanwhile, found itself in limbo, as de Klerk embraced much of the platform it had espoused, leaving it without a clear purpose. Further reforms followed; membership of the National Party was opened up to non-whites. The Population Registration Act, which established the racial classificatory guidelines for South Africa, was rescinded.

In , de Klerk gave orders to end South Africa's nuclear weapons programme; the process of nuclear disarmament was essentially completed in The existence of the nuclear programme was not officially acknowledged before His presidency was dominated by the negotiation process, mainly between his NP government and the ANC, which led to the democratization of South Africa.

On 17 March , de Klerk held a whites-only referendum on ending apartheid, with the result being an overwhelming "yes" vote to continue negotiations to end apartheid. Nelson Mandela was distrustful of the role played by de Klerk in the negotiations, particularly as he believed that de Klerk was knowledgeable about 'third force' attempts to foment violence in the country and destabilize the negotiations.

De Klerk's possible role in the 'third force' came to the attention of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but was ultimately never clarified. He also accused de Klerk of permitting his ministers to build their own criminal empires. The massacre caused a resurgence of international pressure against South Africa over claims of police collusion, leading to a weaker position at the negotiation tables for the National Party.

The Goldstone Commission concluded there was no evidence of police collusion in the massacre. On 30 April , de Klerk issued an apology for the actions of the apartheid government, stating that: "It was not our intention to deprive people of their rights and to cause misery, but eventually apartheid led to just that. Insofar as to what occurred we deeply regret it