Maria Helena do Rego da Costa Salema Roseta was born in Lisbon on 23 December 1947. She grew up in a family of 7 siblings. A student with excellent grades, she studied at the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho secondary school and in 1964/65 was awarded a national prize given to the student with the best grades. After leaving school she went to the School of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, where she took a degree in architecture. In 1967, after floods that killed 500 people in the Lisbon region, she became involved with other students to support the flooded areas and publicize the facts, despite the censorship efforts of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime. Her future husband, Pedro Roseta, was another of the students involved. They have three daughters, one of them is Filipa Roseta.
