[1] Josina was born with a twin brother, Belmiro, in Vilanculos, Inhambane, Mozambique on August 10, 1945, into an assimilado family that was nevertheless active in anti-colonial work.

Two years later, she joined the Núcleo dos Estudantes Africanos Secundários de Mocambique (NESAM), a clandestine cultural and political organization that was founded by Eduardo Mondlane in 1949.

[2] Her political consciousness developed within the organization, which was surveilled by colonial police, until once she was 18 she fled the country with eight other students (including Armando Emilio Guebuza) intending the Tanzania-based Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO).

They managed to reach the Rhodesia-Zambia border at Victoria Falls, a journey of some 1,300 kilometres (800 mi), before they were apprehended, extradited back to Mozamqique, and jailed.

Following intense international publicity involving the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations, FRELIMO leader Eduardo Mondlane succeeded in persuading the British authorities to release the 18 students and allow them to proceed to Tanzania.

After a long, arduous trip in public buses, the group finally arrives weak and undernourished in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

A year and a half later, Josina turns down the offer of a scholarship to undertake university studies in Switzerland and volunteers for FRELIMO's newly created Women's Branch (Destacamento Feminino).

Josina plays a visionary role in identifying the need for child care centers to look after children who have been orphaned or separated from their families by the war.

In mid-1968 Josina is named a delegate to the Second FRELIMO Congress where she is a strong advocate for the full inclusion of women within all aspects of the liberation struggle.

She is appointed head of FRELIMO's Department of Social Affairs where she actively develops child care and educational centers in northern Mozambique and advocates with local populations for the importance of sending girls to school.

When FRELIMO President Eduardo Mondlane is assassinated in Tanzania by Portuguese agents, Josina moves in with his wife, Janet, to provide comfort and company.

At the end of the year, she leaves Samito with a friend and undertakes a two-month trip, largely on foot, through Niassa Province to assess conditions and plan activities for the Department of Social Affairs.

Inspired in part by the ideals of women's emancipation that Machel promoted, the organization continued to work for this goal following Mozambican independence in 1975.