Kirsty Sword grew up in Melbourne and Bendigo and attended Melbourne University, completing a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) and a Diploma of Education. In 1991 she joined the Refugee Studies Program at Oxford University and, during that year, travelled to East Timor as a television documentary researcher and interpreter.
Sword lived and worked in Jakarta from 1992-1996, becoming an activist for the East Timorese independence movement. In 1994 she met the leader of the movement, Xanana Gusmao, and was married to him in 2000.
Sword Gusmao has lived in East Timor since 1999 and is the founding director of the Alola Foundation which assists East Timorese women and their families.
