<\/p>\n

Freweini Mebrahtu, who designed and patented a reusable menstrual pad for girls in her native Ethiopia who do not have access to sanitary pads, has been named the 2019 CNN Hero of the Year.<\/p>\n

Freweini has dedicated her life to keeping girls in school by designing a reusable menstrual pad and trying to end the cultural stigma around the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know what to say,\u201d Freweini said when receiving the award. \u201cI am so humbled and grateful for CNN \u2026 this is for all the girls and women everywhere. Dignity for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Online voters selected Freweini as the 2019 CNN Hero of the Year award from among the Top 10 CNN Heroes finalists.<\/p>\n

Freweini \u2013 who is from Ethiopia and studied chemical engineering in the US \u2014 designed and patented a reusable menstrual pad in 2005.<\/p>\n

She and her team produce 750,000 reusable pads a year at her factory in Ethiopia. Nearly 800,000 girls and women have benefited from her work.<\/p>\n

More than 80% of the pads she manufactures are sold to non-governmental organizations that distribute them for free.<\/p>\n

She knows personally what it\u2019s like to deal with the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remembered (hearing) that it\u2019s actually a curse to have a period \u2026 or that it meant I am ready to be married, or (that) I\u2019m being bad,\u201d Freweini told CNN.<\/p>\n

Freweini has teamed up with the nonprofit, Dignity Period, to end the stigma around the issue by speaking at schools and teaching girls and boys that menstruation is natural, not shameful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole goal was not only making the pads, but also attacking the cultural baggage to it,\u201d she said.
\nDignity Period has distributed more than 150,000 free menstrual hygiene kits purchased from Freweini\u2019s factory.<\/p>\n

Data gathered by the group shows that schools visited by Dignity Period had a 24% increase in attendance among girls.<\/p>\n

As the 2019 CNN Hero of the Year, Freweini will receive $100,000 to expand her work. All of the top 10 CNN Heroes for 2019 were honored at Sunday\u2019s gala and will receive a $10,000 cash award.<\/p>\n

Freweini was presented with the Hero of the Year award Sunday night by hosts Anderson Cooper and Kelly Ripa.<\/p>\n

If you would like to support Freweini\u2019s work or any of the nonprofit organizations of the Top 10 CNN Heroes, you can also make a donation via CNNHeroes.com.<\/p>\n

All donations made by January 2, 2020, will be matched by Subaru up to $50,000 per Hero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freweini Mebrahtu, who designed and patented a reusable menstrual pad for girls in her native Ethiopia who do not have access to sanitary pads, has been named the 2019 CNN Hero of the Year. Freweini has dedicated her life to keeping girls in school by designing a reusable menstrual pad and trying to end the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":14617,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-embassy-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/freweini.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14616"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14621,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14616\/revisions\/14621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianembassy.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}