Celeste Mergens

“Re-Creation” - song written by Georgia Stitt

-- read poem (by Jacqueline Suskin)

-- read lyrics

honored in partnership with Women Like Us Foundation

Celeste Mergens is the Founder and CEO of Days for Girls International (DfGI). Since 2008, Days for Girls has restored days of education and opportunity to over 640,000 women and girls in over 100 countries on 6 continents, through providing access to sustainable feminine hygiene solutions and health education. Celeste founded Days for Girls at a time when virtually no other organizations were speaking about the global need for menstrual hygiene management solutions, or the potential for those solutions to help break the cycle of poverty for women. Celeste has led Days for Girls to develop a global network of over 830 volunteer Chapters and Teams, and social enterprise programs in 13 countries, all while maintaining an extremely low overhead. Celeste was featured as a panelist at the 2015 and 2016 UN Commissions on the Status of Women. Her TEDx video has over 16,000 views. Days for Girls is a two-time Girl Effect Champion, won the SEED award for gender equity and entrepreneurship in 2015, and was named by the Huffington Post as a ‘Next Ten’ Organization poised to change the world in the next decade. Celeste is an innovative and motivating leader, as well as an engaging speaker that averages over 50 speaking engagements per year.