Mehret Mandefro

“When people saw the film, they understood how women and girls are treated in almost every facet of society and how the issue of violence cuts across all of them,” Mehret Mandefro recently said of “Difret,” the award-winning 2014 film she produced about a high-profile women’s rights case that outlawed the kidnapping of child brides in Ethiopia. Through Truth Aid, the non-profit she co-founded, Mandefro draws on her experience as a physician and anthropologist to make films about the social determinants of health. She began her career as a physician and public health practitioner working extensively with HIV infected and affected communities in Botswana, South Africa, Ethiopia and New York. Mandefro subsequently worked as a health policy advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs under President Barack Obama. More recently, she served as chief medical officer of Amida Technology Solutions and was a faculty member at the George Washington School of Public Health and Health Services. She currently leads Truth Aid and is executive producer at Kana Television. Updated 2018