Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs was born on December 23, 1968 in Terneuzen, the Netherlands.

In 1991 Sandra E. Roelofs graduated with honors from the State Economic Institute for Translators and Interpreters, Brussels, majoring in French and German. She met the Georgian lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili in 1993 while attending a course on human rights in Strasbourg and later that year moved to New York where they got married. Sandra worked both at Columbia University and a Dutch law firm.

In 1996 the couple returned to Georgia, where Sandra E. Roelofs worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Her husband became the President of Georgia in January 2004.

Since 2004 Sandra E. Roelofs started implementing her long-cherished dream of establishing a 24-hour classical music radio station MUZA (www.muza.ge) in Georgia with Dutch expertise, which launched its broadcasting in the summer of 2007.

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. The book was translated into Georgian English, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Turkish languages.

Since 2004 Sandra Roelofs got gradually involved in Public Health

In the spring of 2008 Sandra Roelofs finished a three-year nursing course in Tbilisi and regularly works as a nurse on duty at one of the hospital's maternity department. Currently, she is pursuing a MSc Degree in Global Health Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Sandra Roelofs has set up breast and cervical cancer screening programs in Georgia and chairs the "Black See Countries’ Coalition on Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention” in which eight countries are cooperating.

In 2011, she launched the national campaign “Don’t Worry, Be Healthy!” which promoted healthy life style nation-wide and received the DEVCO Communication Award 2012 from the European Union.

As of March 2011, Sandra Roelofs became a Goodwill Ambassador promoting Milenium Development Goal for WHO Europe and is continuing to fulfill this function today.

In the autumn of 2011, Sandra was elected as the representative of Georgia to the Supervisory Board of the Global Fund for 2012-2013.  She was serving at the Board of the Global Fund fighting Aids, TB and Malaria.

Besides her native Dutch, Sandra E. Roelofs speaks French, English, German, Russian, and Georgian languages.

Sandra E. Roelofs and Mikheil Saakashvili have two sons - Edward (1995) and Nicholas (2005).

SOCO Foundation

In 1998 Sandra E. Roelofs registered the SOCO Foundation (www.soco.ge), a charitable non-governmental organization, which has the primary focus of implementing the programs funded by Western European and Georgian companies and individuals and is aimed at supporting the most vulnerable groups. Since setting new targets in 2007, the SOCO Foundation has been actively taking care of reproductive health and child welfare in Georgia. Recently, it has also opened a branch office for Rare Diseases and has started to assist disabled children and young adults as well.