Check Out Melissa Berton’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Berton.

Hi Melissa, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
What I love best about being an English teacher at Oakwood high school in North Hollywood is seeing how stories written hundreds of years ago can still inspire or enrage us and tell us something about what it means to be human. In many of the ancient texts, such as The Odyssey, the women characters are smart and strong but also bartered like property and subject to patriarchal rules. Upset by the gender inequity we still face today and by the knowledge that many girls around the world miss school when they are menstruating because they do not have access to the education and supplies they need–my students and I determined to take action. We partnered with the NGO Action India, based in New Delhi, to fundraise for a pad-manufacturing machine that would not only supply pads for women in the rural village of Kathikera but would also provide a means of employment for the women who were operating the machine. At the same time, we co-founded a non-profit organization, The Pad Project, to end menstrual stigma, and undertook to make a film about the pad machine’s impact on the community in the hopes that the film would raise awareness about period poverty. The resultant documentary, titled Period. End of Sentence went on to win the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Short Film in 2019. The Oscar win brought global attention to the work of The Pad Project, and we now partner with NGOs in 13 countries to support the production and distribution of pads. In the US our Pads Across America and our Pads for Schools programs have provided over 170,000 menstrual products to individuals who need them.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest obstacle my students and I faced as we tried to raise funds to make a film about menstrual stigma was that each of us had to be ready to go public with a topic that is intimate, and in most places around the world, including the United States—taboo. In fact, when Period. End of Sentence. was nominated for an Oscar an un-named director and member of the Academy was quoted in The Hollywood Reporter as claiming that none of his fellow male members of the Director’s Branch would ever vote for a film about periods to win the award because that was just “too icky.” My brave students led the way on breaking this taboo, and I have to tell you that sometimes I still have to overcome my own embarrassment about talking (and posting) so much about the P-word (okay, I’ll say it—Periods!). When my daughter told me she wanted to share the work of The Pad Project with our entire school at an assembly, I discouraged her. I did not want her to be a target for mockery. Luckily, like many teen-aged girls when it comes to parental advice, she ignored me entirely. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t nervous when the big day came, but she still smiles to remember that in the awkward quiet after her announcement, she heard the most popular surfer in her grade turn to his buddy and say, “Dude—did she just talk about her period in front of the whole school? That’s so cool!”

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Since Period. End of Sentence. won the Academy Award, and I became the Executive Director of The Pad Project, people often ask me when I will quit teaching high school English. Although I trust that as our non-profit organization grows, we will have the resources to bring on a larger, global staff, I also hope I will continue to teach literature. There is nothing that inspires me more than that moment when a classroom full of students, who are deeply engaged in a discussion about a book, suddenly recognize they are part of a grander conversation and that they have the power to make positive change.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite childhood memory is being tucked into bed and my mom reading and singing me to sleep.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.melissaberton.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissa.berton/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissa.berton.1
• Twitter: @BertonMelissa
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Headshot: Kate Jones Students surrounding me with Oscar, Black & White: Monica Orozco