In 1991 she graduated with honors from the State Economic Institute for Translators and Interpreters, Brussels, majoring in French and German.

Since 1996 Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In 1997-2004 she has also been a correspondent for Dutch radio covering Georgian politics and socio-economic topics.

In 1998 she founded the SOCO Foundation (www.soco.ge), a charitable non-governmental organization which conducts humanitarian projects for the most vulnerable groups sponsored by both Western-European and Georgian companies and individuals.

In 1999-2003 she was coordinator for a management know-how transfer program funded by the Netherlands government and she was a visiting lecturer of French language at Tbilisi State University. From 2003 she switched to the Caucasus School of Business, a private educational institution where she has been teaching French to students till 2007.
Besides her native language Mrs. Roelofs is proficient in French, English, German, Russian and Georgian. She is also learning a regional language in Georgia: Mingrelian.

In March 2005 the First Lady of Georgia published her autobiography "Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs – the Story of an Idealist" in Amsterdam, in the Dutch language. A translation in Georgian and in Ukrainian followed in October 2005.

The First Lady of Georgia takes pride in working on a daily basis on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals with a special focus on reduction of maternal and child mortality, extreme poverty and infectious diseases. Since October 2004 Mrs. Roelofs is the chairperson of the Country Coordinating Mechanism for projects of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Georgia. Recently she was appointed Stop TB Partnership Ambassador.

She is also chairing the Reproductive Health National Council under the Georgian Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. She supports this Ministry in issues like the promotion of immunization and healthy life style (including fight against drug abuse).

In spring 2008 Mrs. Roelofs finished with honor a three-year nursing course in Tbilisi and received the diploma.

Since 2004, she started implementing her long-cherished dream of establishing a 24-hour classical music radio station “Muza” in Georgia with Dutch expertise, which launched it’s broadcasting in summer 2007.

She is hosting for four hours a week at the radio. Mrs. Roelofs is chairing “The Association for Promotion of Classical Music”, whose first and biggest project is radio “Muza”. Association also assists choirs and orchestras, has scholarship programs for the young talented musicians, promotes wind instruments and organizes summer camps, festivals and master classes.

Mrs. Roelofs herself plays the piano and the flute and loves to sing Georgian folk songs.

She is fond of swimming, tennis and skiing.

 

Stan Storimans' Scholarship for the Georgian Journalists - www.storimansscholarship.ge

 

SOCO Foundation

Since February, 2007 priority of SOCO Foundation has become reproductive health and care for newborns:

• Material assistance (renovation, medical equipment, disposables) to the delivery homes;
• Multi-children families support;
• Information to pregnant women and general public on reproductive health;
• Promotion of Healthy Lifestyle and early prevention of oncological diseases of the reproductive system;
• Education and training of medical personnel in reproductive health (radiologists, neonatologists, midwives);
• Supporting the mobile team of UNFPA (medical staff, material assistance).

Ongoing projects:

• Multi-children families support with food packages – Adjara, Chiatura, Tbilisi;
• Free medical consultation of women in Kvemo Kartli region by the physicians mobile group;
• Start packages for pregnant women in Kvemo Kartli region;
• Healthy Marriage – free medical consultation and treatment along with the incentives for the newly-wed couples in Adjara;
• On-site training of radiologists in Samegrelo and Kvemo Kartli;
• Equipment support of prenatal diagnostics at the Gudushauri clinic in Tbilisi;
• Financial support of transportation and amniocentesis procedure for risk group pregnant women from the regions;
• Material assistance to Makhindjauri Orphanage;
• Material assistance to Borjomi Maternity House.