Helen M. Wall, MA, was born in Leeds in northern England and graduated from Lanchester Polytechnic.  She pursued a career as a research technician working in plant biochemistry at University College, London, and the Rothamsted Experimental Station in Harpenden, the world’s oldest continuously-operating agricultural research station.  She attended the University of Kansas, where she completed a master’s degree in plant biochemistry and also met her future husband, Lewis Wall.

Helen has traveled extensively throughout Africa with her husband.  After Lewis graduated from medical school, they spent three months in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) working at a mission hospital.  She has traveled to Ghana, Niger, and Uganda and has made many trips to Ethiopia.  She lived in Mekelle for eight months in 2014, at which time she was instrumental in the founding of Dignity Period, a not-for-profit charity that provides menstrual education and menstrual hygiene supplies to girls and women in northern Ethiopia in partnership with Mekelle University and the Mariam Seba Sanitary Products Factory.  The Dignity Period Project, based at Mekelle University, has carried out numerous research projects on menstrual beliefs, attitudes and practices in northern Ethiopia.  To date the project has reached over 350,000 students in the Tigray and Afar Regions of Ethiopia. Their partner, Freweini Mebrahtu, owner-operator of the Mariam Seba Sanitary Products Factory, was named “Hero of the Year” in 2019 by the Cable News Network for her efforts in this partnership.

Helen has considerable personal experience in the financial complexities of non-profit organizations, and has served as treasurer on the Board of Directors of The Worldwide Fistula Fund as well as currently serving as treasurer on the Board of Directors of Dignity Period.