When Sharon Orapeleng moved to Australia from her native Botswana 17 years ago, her only knowledge of the land Down Under was from the television show Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. "I had only heard about Australia vaguely - we actually thought that kangaroos just ran around the streets in Australia," Sharon says.
She was 19 and came to study psychology at Latrobe University in Melbourne. Her mother was a mental health nurse, so although none of the universities in Botswana offered psychology courses, she knew it was what she wanted to do. She wanted to help people. 
"Books of psychiatry and mental health had always been around at home and that really got me interested in studying peoples behaviour," she says.
Arriving in Australia for the first time, she had no idea what to expect.
"The journey from the airport, seeing cars parked in the streets, like, Oh my goodness, cars are parked in the street, are people not scared that these cars are going to be stolen?
"Back in those days you would walk down the street and you wouldnt see another African person. If you did you would run over to them and say, Oh my brother, my sister! Not being able to look around and see somebody who looks like you was kind of tough."
Sharon regularly shares her stories about how hard her first year in Australia was, because she now dedicates her life - through her work in transcultural mental health and her role as a community leader - to helping others of migrant or refugee backgrounds to find their feet
here and thrive.
She talks about being on the train in that first year and someone touching her skin without asking.
"I realised that people are curious and one thing Id rather have is people who are curious and engaged in a conversation, because you have an opportunity to educate them better."
She finished her masters degree in 2005, met a "lovely man", her now husband David, and then moved to Brisbane in 2006. Together they have a little boy, Xavier, 6, and live in a house at Red Hill.
Her day job looks at mental health issues for people from migrant and refugee backgrounds, and how health services can respond to them in a culturally sensitive way.
"Mental health in the western world is very different from the way mental health is viewed in a lot of (other) communities," she says. "Some communities dont even have a word for mental health issues because the explanatory models are very different - so the way they treat or support that person would be very different."
She is a past president of the Queensland African Communities Council, secretary of the Federation of African Community Councils in Australia and vicepresident of Queensland Multicultural Council.
Next week she will be MC at a benefit concert, Songs of Hope and Healing, to raise money for the Friends of the Home of Expressive Arts and Learning, which provides creative arts therapy to young people of refugee backgrounds. The concert will feature a string of high-profile acts, including musician Lior, classical pianist Shan Deng and various youth choirs.
Sharon says the common thread in all her commitments is her innate desire to help others sieze opportunities, in the same way that she has.
"My involvement is to help people overcome difficulties but also then to see opportunities and actually start to thrive," she says. "When people are together in taking on those obstacles then were going to have an amazing multicultural community that is contributing to the
wealth of diversity of this country. Thats what really drives me."
SONGS OF HOPE AND HEALING, 7pm, Aug 28, $39, Concert Hall, QPAC, South Bank, ph: 136 246. qpac.com.au