Sekai Shand was born and grew up in Zimbabwe. She trained as a registered nurse in London before moving to Australia in 1985, where she studied political science and completed a PhD in international relations at the University of Melbourne. She married an Australian, Adam Shand, and with him she returned to Zimbabwe in the early 1990s. Her book Songs to an African Sunset describes this experience.
She has worked for a number of years with World Vision Australia, including within the Africa Team and in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program. She served in Zimbabwe and Tanzania from 1995 to 1997. She is also the international spokeperson on HIV/AIDS for World Vision Australia, and her work on the subject has been published in international journals. In 2000 she became the Director for Policy and Communications, World Vision Australia. This position encompasses responsibility for advocacy, research and education across the organization, and liaison with World Vision international offices.
Her stories are included in the short story collections Daughters of Africa (1992), Images of the West and Always Elsewhere : Travels of the Black Atlantic (1998).
