Misconceptions about periods and menstrual health with teacher and Academy Award winner Melissa Berton

Today’s episode is with Melissa Berton, an Academy Award-Winning Producer. Eleanor Roosevelt Global Women’s Rights Recipient. Forbes 50 Over 50 Honoree. The Pad Project, Founder | Executive Director.

Melissa Berton, lifelong advocate for girls and women, has taught English at Oakwood Secondary School in Los Angeles for over a decade. As faculty advisor for Girls Learn International, a program of The Feminist Majority Foundation advocating for equal access to education across genders, she has thrice participated as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, leading the largest student delegation from a single high school. 

In 2013, following that first U.N. trip, Melissa inspired her students to produce a documentary to raise awareness about menstrual health and education worldwide, leading to a 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, Period. End of Sentence. The Oscar win sparked a global conversation about period poverty and menstrual equality?

We talk about the following and so much more: 

✅ How does she address cultural taboos and misconceptions surrounding menstruation as a teacher

✅What role can schools and educational institutions play in destigmatizing menstruation and promoting menstrual health

✅ Why she created the documentary Period? 

✅ What inspired her to start the Pad Project and become an advocate for menstrual hygiene and education

✅ How access to menstrual products and education about menstruation can impact the lives of individuals and communities

✅ Some of the biggest challenges she has faced in advocating for menstrual equity, and how have she worked to overcome them

✅ Memorable stories or experiences from your work with the Pad Project that have particularly resonated with her 

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