My formative years were spent documenting the lives of people a lot less fortunate than me and witnessing the gut-wrenching difficulties of day-to-day living on the breadline.

As news journalists, we didn’t have time (or money) for beauty tricks, yoga classes, flouncy hair or heels. Today we might be sucking our shoes through muddy, flooded rivers, which once were roads, and tomorrow chasing down an early morning traffic disaster on a highway on the outskirts of town...