She spent her childhood and formative years in Singapore where her father was a civil servant.
[1] During this time she was elected as the vice-president and then president of the United Nations Students' Association, National University of Singapore, for which she organised a six-month awareness campaign called ‘The Children of Bangladesh.’ The campaign highlighted the plight of the street children and she then took the campaign a stage further by leading a student delegation of 20 to carry out relief work in Bangladesh for three weeks in 1998.
The project was funded by the British government under the early years of its Prevent scheme and by 2009 is said to have received approximately £1.2 million.
In 2006, she was named Media Professional of the Year at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards.
They met in June 2001 whilst attending a conference organised by the Zaytuna Institute in San Francisco.