Melissa Berton, an Academy Award-winning producer, women’s rights advocate and UCLA alumnus, joins Podcasts contributor Kayla Hayempour.

Kayla Hayempour: Hello, and welcome to Bruin to Bruin. On this show, we sit down with members of the UCLA community to hear their story and advice they have for students. My name is Kayla Hayempour, and I’m a Podcasts contributor at the Daily Bruin.

Today I’m interviewing Melissa Berton, an Academy Award-winning producer for Best Documentary Short in 2019 for “Period. End of Sentence.” and named one of Forbes’ 50 Over 50 Women Making Social Impact. Berton is the founder and executive director of The Pad Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the principle that a period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Melissa and The Pad Project as an ambassador and advocate to promote menstrual equity. Berton also received the 2019 Eleanor Roosevelt Global Women’s Rights Award and the 2023 Last Girl Award to end human trafficking. She’s a UCLA alum, and I’m so excited to be speaking with her today.

Melissa Berton, thank you for joining me, and welcome to the show.

Melissa Berton: Thank you so much, Kayla, for having me. It’s an honor to be here. Go Bruins.

KH: Go Bruins. OK, so, a little bit of a funny coincidence, the week that we are recording this episode is Passover, which is very fitting for one of the first stories I heard about you – that one Passover when you were young, you crossed off all the “hes” that refer to God and changed them to “shes.” Clearly your love of activism was very innate from a young age. What do you think really sparked that in you?

MB: So for people who may not know, at Passover you read from a little – it’s like a miniature, not miniature in story, but miniature in size, prayer book that’s called the Haggadah. And it’s really the story of Passover. And in that story, God is always referred to as a “he” in this particular Haggadah that we were reading, and also the forefathers were always mentioned. And I come from a family of three sisters. So for four daughters and my mother, and I think as a little girl, it just struck me the wrong way. It’s not that I felt like God had to be a “she,” but I felt that the possibility ought to be there, that God is a she or he or a being. And certainly that foremothers should be included with forefathers – that that pronoun of “he” shouldn’t describe all people because it didn’t feel like it was describing me or my sisters, and it was the story of a beloved history, and I wanted to feel part of that history.

KH: Absolutely, I think it’s a very powerful message to – or not even just a message but conclusion to – come to as a child, because the words that we use, the pronouns that we use, they really do matter in how we see ourselves represented. And “he” and male really does tend to be the default, which is something that we’ll kind of discuss a little bit later, you moving into this space of menstrual equity and really breaking that glass ceiling. I want to fast forward a little bit: You went into teaching. Even though there was this activism spark as a child, you went into teaching. What was your journey like at UCLA? Did you know you wanted to go to education? What was that process like for you?

MB: UCLA, I was a theater major at UCLA way back in the day. I didn’t know necessarily if I wanted to go into acting, but I did love working together to put on a show, put on something. I think that a lot of activism is definitely collaboration and teamwork and trying to tell a human story. That’s how we are moved. And my other great love – I loved acting and plays, but I also loved reading and literature. So teaching, for me, kind of combined those two things where you’re – the classroom for me, it’s always the most exciting stage because you’re discovering, and your students are discovering, and everybody is learning and working toward understanding. My fun fact of UCLA is that I got to be in the same class with the actor Jack Black, and he was – I directed a one-act, and he was so talented. I just knew that he was going to make it big. Jack later was a major contributor to the success of the film when we needed money early on to produce “Period. End of Sentence.,” which we’ll probably talk about in this podcast. He graciously contributed, which is so nice. So again, go Bruins. I remain close, and another best friend that I made at UCLA is on our Pad Project board of directors. So hold close to your friends that you make in college. It’s really such a special period, and some of the favorite plays that I did at UCLA were the kind of theater that’s designed to promote human rights and that kind of theater as well.

KH: That’s so cool. Beyond the fun fact itself, I think that it’s just really remarkable how film and documentaries and storytelling can be such an important medium for advocating for human rights. While maybe initially you associate movies with something a little bit more fun and a little bit more pop culture-like, it really is a very powerful way to get people to pay attention to issues that they might not know about from a real human perspective. And I think it goes to show how strong UCLA has with their alumni – strong alumni base. But beyond that, also just the ability to really mobilize people for something that you’re really passionate about, which is very cool. So that is a perfect transition into talking about The Pad Project itself. When did you first learn about the issue of period poverty? And how did you come about wanting to make a difference with that area of human rights in particular?

MB: Well, I think going back to UCLA days, when I was a theater major, if you – if somebody had said, “Hey, Melissa, you know, one day when you’re 50 years old, you’re going to win an Oscar for a documentary film about periods,” I would not have believed you. I would have thought, “Wow, an Oscar? Sure, I would love that in my future,” but I would not have predicted that. The way that it came about is that as a family of daughters, of four sisters, certainly periods were something that were talked about and happening in our household all the time growing up. And then later, when I became a teacher – I’m an English teacher, I teach literature – and often in the texts that I teach, which are texts that all of us really know or have heard something about, these are origin texts. So I’m talking about the Odyssey. I’m talking about the Bible as literature. I’m talking about the play Oedipus and the story Beowulf, and also we read the great Indian epic in play version, the Mahabharata.

In these texts of origin, they are all patriarchal worlds, so that women, as brilliant and ingenious and colorful as they are – and they are – they are there to support the men character. Men are introduced by patriarchal lines: “I am Hrothgar, son of Heorogar [sic],” son of this, son of that. “I am Odysseus, son of Laertes” – and the women are valued by their ability to bear children, their virginity or lack of virginity. So I, along with female students in my class, had some reaction about that over time. And it wasn’t that we don’t love this literature or appreciate it, but it’s kind of easy to see how periods became subjects of shame, subjects of taboo. In the Bible, Eve has the curse – the curse is one’s period. But then if you kind of zoom out and realize that were not for the menstrual cycle, which is part of the reproductive cycle, none of us would be here. And how is it fair that women around the world and in almost every culture – not all cultures, but in the majority of cultures – have some shame and stigma associated with menstruation?

All of this is background, but two farseeing students asked me to join an organization called Girls Learn International, which is a wonderful organization, which is dedicated to ensuring that girls have equal access – equal access to education as boys do worldwide. And they asked me to be the faculty sponsor board of this organization. I was delighted to do so. As part of being a faculty sponsor for that organization, I traveled with the students to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, which is something I do every year still. And it was there in 2013 where my students and I learned about this issue, which is called period poverty. Period poverty, for listeners who might not know, is the lack of access to clean and safe toilets, clean and safe handwashing facilities, lack of menstrual products and a lack of reproductive knowledge, lack of knowledge of one’s own body. And as a result of period poverty, as many as one in four girls around the world misses school or drops out of school or cannot access her education. I’ve been talking a lot, so I’ll stop there and ask if you have a question or want to insert anything there.

KH: Thank you. I want to respond to a few things that you said. Going back to just your last point about the definition of period poverty, I think that that’s something that not a lot of people expect – is that it’s not just about your ability to access or afford pads, tampons or other supplies. It really is this well-rounded access to health and sanitation facilities, to so many different aspects of sexual and reproductive health and rights, that are not solely tied to periods. And I think that not a lot of people realize that, which is an important thing to discuss, because those benefits of implementing clean and safe toilets or hand washing facilities benefit more than just women and girls who menstruate. They can benefit entire communities. And you know, I think that that’s why we also see that yes, period poverty, menstrual equity is not just about periods. It’s very closely intertwined with access to education, child marriage, public health crises when women and girls don’t have access to safe and clean products or environments. So part of really addressing the period poverty issue, as you mentioned, is this full-on solution for trying to break the cycle of poverty overall.

I think also – responding to your point about stigma – I also was a part of GLI, Girls Learn International, in high school. I was inspired by The Pad Project to do that. I’ll share a little bit of my story for listeners who are interested in how I got into this. I was watching the Oscars, and I had gone upstairs to get something from my room, and all of a sudden, my mom starts yelling my name and she’s like, “Kayla, Kayla Kayla, you have to come down and see this.” And she played the acceptance speech, and I heard your voice: “A period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education.” And ironically, I was on my period that day. I just felt so seen and represented. I didn’t know that period poverty existed. I felt so alone in my struggles of getting my period young, dealing with issues surrounding my period, feeling embarrassed and shameful, culturally not being able to talk about that very openly. I’m lucky that I had a mom that tried to dispel some of those period myths and stigma for me. She wasn’t allowed to use tampons when she was younger because of that false idea that it will take your virginity and ideas linked to impurity. So I think it’s really important that in these spaces like GLI and on our college campuses and high school campuses, that you actually speak with the people around you to normalize the topic. When I went to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, I was speaking in a global conversation circle, and there were girls who were prohibited from entering the kitchen while on their periods, and so their act of resistance was just going in to get a snack. So I think it’s really important that we discuss all of these different aspects of the issue because so many of them go unseen and unheard.

I think that that leads us to the birth of The Pad Project. You guys had gone to this conference. You’d heard about this issue. I know that maybe around that time was also when you were introduced to the pad-making machine that’s kind of at the heart of this documentary. How did this idea and this initial drive for wanting to make a difference in this area actually turn it into the documentary and The Pad Project as we know it today? What was the timeline of that like?

MB: Thank you for that question. And thank you so much for your knowledge and for sharing that story about watching the Oscars and your mother calling you into the room to hear that speech, and that it inspired you – because that really inspires me to hear that, and I’m touched by how much you know. And you’re right that going into the kitchen when a woman shouldn’t be allowed to go into the kitchen, because she’s “unclean” when she has her period, is such a strong act of resistance and something that we want to recognize and understand. So back to this timeline of how was The Pad Project Project born. You know, I almost feel embarrassed about saying this, but the idea for the documentary was almost born, was born, in an instant. It was born out of the shame that I and my students felt, that this issue was something we never dreamed of. We never thought about it. I’m proud that I do think the awareness of menstrual inequity is now a larger issue that people know about. I can tell you though, in 2013, it did not – people were talking about it. Wonderful organizations were doing things about it. But it was not in the zeitgeist as something that I feel people in the world were really wise to. So just looking at my students who – maybe some of them hadn’t even had their periods yet, because as we know, you can get your periods as early as 9, but you can get it as late as 18 or 19 in some cases. So I remember actually that, I think, one of my students was worried because she hadn’t yet gotten her period. She was in high school – she was 16, 17. The other students may have had their periods on the trip. I think all of us were just so taken aback by this idea that somebody would be robbed of her education because of a natural biological cycle. And it was, as you suggested, at that same conference that we learned about this brilliant inventor (Arunachalam) Muruganantham, who had made a sanitary pad machine. And at the same time, we were in relationship with a nonprofit called Action India based out of Delhi, who themselves were in relationship with a community that wanted one of Muruganantham’s machines. So perhaps this has to do with being a school that is located in California – we love movies. We know the value of film and telling a story.

Again, as an English teacher, I think the power of story is so vivid to me. And when my students and I met back in the hotel room to debrief the day, we were fired up. We were outraged. We were ashamed, like I said, that we didn’t know about this issue, and we were determined to do something. So what we were determined to do was twofold. One was to raise money to get a sanitary pad machine, one of Muruganantham’s sanitary pad-making machines, to the village of Kathikhera and to document the process on film. We thought the film could be like a nice educational film that would go in – since you’re familiar with GLI – GLI has a guidebook, a tool book with great wonderful lessons for people to understand things. We thought, “Wouldn’t it be important if we could make some small film that could be part of the GLI guidebook that students could watch?”

As the journey kept on and the more that we were in touch with, we realized how this issue – which shouldn’t be rocket science to figure out; after all, half of the population menstruates – but we were seeing how much momentum we were getting. And even though it took a lot of years, there was also a lot of fire and support that we saw that we had more. We had the opportunity to do more than an educational film as we were getting going. So we began to do – we made the documentary. And that’s a whole story too, but I hope that explains a little bit about the beginnings.

KH: Yes, absolutely. And for listeners who might be unaware, you’re able to watch the documentary on YouTube. I think it’s still on Netflix as well. It’s 25 minutes. I highly recommend it. And we’ll get into that in a few questions. We’ll get into kind of the nitty-gritty of what it was like to really film that. But as you’d mentioned, you guys really did have this strong momentum, not just in the girls that you were working with – and you yourself – that were passionate about the issue, but also in parents, connections, people in the film industry who were actually wanting to make this a reality. What was that like for you to see that maybe some of this cultural stigma or awareness and recognition of periods had changed? Was it very different from your own childhood? I know that within your family personally, it was a little bit more normalized because of how you grew up with sisters, and you guys all spoke about it. But generationally, was this a little bit of a culture shock to you to see how well-received it had been?

MB: It was a complete culture shock, and I’ll share a story that I hope you haven’t heard me share before –

KH: I’ll pretend like I haven’t, even if you have.

MB: OK, OK. So my daughter – so I teach at Oakwood School in North Hollywood, which is part of – I need to give credit also to Oakwood School. Oakwood is an independent school, and it is a little quirky. I don’t know what the word is to use. I can tell you that I have taught English in many different places and all of them wonderful institutions. But I want to give credit to the administration at Oakwood School who, when I came to them and said, “Hey, I’ve got a handful of 15-year-old students who want to make a film about periods,” they did not say, “Hey, we’re not sure how this would be received.” They said, “How can we help? What can we do?” So that was a huge boon and a huge support for the film. And again, certainly it’s changed generationally, and I’ll talk about that. But just really, as I had mentioned before, it’s changed so much in the last seven years even.

In 2013, I was very shy myself to say, “periods,” to our head of school who happened to be a man, and our principal who happened to be a man, and all of these other things. It felt really edgy and still sometimes does. My daughter, who was part of what would become The Pad Project, said, “I want to announce at a school assembly that we’re going to be making this film about periods, and we’re going to send a pad machine.” I actually told her, “Helen, don’t do this. you are going to set yourself up for embarrassment.”

I can imagine if I did this in my high school, that would be social suicide. There’s no way. I was scared for her, but like most teenagers, she did ignore me. She did go ahead and do it. And after she did, it was very silent, and I had a silent scare. But then one of the cool guys in the class, her senior class, said, “Dude, did she just talk about her period in front of the whole school? That’s so cool.” And so I think that we all need to trust one another as human beings – that if people are open and honest, it will be received in the right way. I think the arc is moving that way. And it taught me a lesson too. I was caught up in my own shame and worried that my daughter wouldn’t be popular if she said this thing. How silly.

KH: Silly, maybe, but also really valid for the time that you had grown up in and the time that we’re still growing up in, that it’s markedly improved but that it’s still not completely widely accepted or normalized. And I think that even myself, having worked in such a stigmatized space – you really have to be brave, and you have to really be OK with people being unhappy with what you’ve said. People questioning you, telling you that what you’re doing is not important. And so I absolutely don’t blame you for wanting to shield your daughter from that. I mean, thankfully, she did say something, because then who knows where we’d be now without it, but I think it is – I mean, when I started my chapter of Girls Learn International in high school, I had one of my close guy friends joke, “Oh, Kayla started a cooking club. Everybody go join Kayla’s cooking club. They’re going to go cook.” You know, to joke on, “Oh, women belong in the kitchen.” It really was my ability to be like, “Oh, haha, yeah, everybody come join my cooking club” – to turn it into a joke and not give him that power. That was really important. I think that being a trailblazer and creating a space is really important because then you realize how many other people are thinking about the same things, are struggling with the same things. And that’s cool. Actually, I’m going to touch in just a few minutes about bringing in men as a part of the movement, as a part of that film. But I want to touch back on how creating the film and getting The Pad Project to Delhi worked logistically, because you guys all obviously lived here. Did you have people going back and forth? I know in terms of just getting the pad machine itself, you guys had even started out with just bake sales and stuff to raise money. But what was the process? Like actually, OK, this is what we’re going to do, but now how are we going to do it?

MB: It was a long, frustrating, scary but ultimately rewarding process. We, your listeners, might know about Kickstarter as a fundraising platform. We knew we wanted to raise money for the machine, which was $11,000 at that time. And our first quotes, by the way, to make the film were $800,000 – which for people familiar with filmmaking is not outrageous, if you think that it’s going to be shot in India. We are based in Los Angeles. Not crazy, but very, very out of our league. Then we kept talking, talking, talking to people, and people said you could make this for $70,000, $50,000-$70,000. And we thought – OK, somehow, we’re going to do that. Sales had netted $400, but hey, we’re going to do it. And we went into research mode where we talked to filmmakers and inventors and people who went on fundraising platforms. And we decided to take a risk with Kickstarter. Here is the risk that we took: Kickstarter has a deal, and I believe this is still the deal with Kickstarter, that if you don’t make the money you set out to raise within 30 days, you lose all of the funds. So it is very scary. We thought, OK, why don’t we use another platform where that doesn’t happen – like Indiegogo, or GoFundMe, or something like that. The reason though we did decide to take the risk is because we trusted people who had made films, and they said there’s something about the deadline. There’s something about, you just – Kickstarter, you have to try it. So we agreed, and we filmed students talking about – so for, to make a Kickstarter campaign, you make like a little video. And so that’s when our director Rayka Zehtabchi, who is very brilliant, came on board to direct the film. She was a UCLA rival – USC – but she was still in school, actually. And she agreed to come on to help us do this, really, for the price of a ticket to India. She helped the students share their knowledge in a Kickstarter. Within two days of launching the Kickstarter, we made our goal, which was $39,000, and became one of Kickstarter’s Projects We Love. And that was enough to send Rayka to Kathikhera, the village in India where we were filming – enough to get the pad machine, and enough to get us going. We still had about around $40,000 we had to make, which we were able to do. But the response on that Kickstarter testifies to what I had said earlier – that really, people do respond and relate to this issue. And I think there’s something about the power of young women your age, Kayla, and younger, who are close to having their periods, who are still in a time where they are in school, and to hear them talk about something that somebody next door and across the world is experiencing. Why should any person be held back from their education? So I think that that message resonated, has always resonated with people, and that’s what enabled us to make those funds. And I forget what your originating question was, and I talked a long time, but I hope I answered it.

KH: No, no, you did. And I have chills after that. Because I really think what you said is true, that this project of the documentary – but beyond that the menstrual equity movement in general – is really fueled by yes, people of all ages and of all backgrounds, but young people: young women, young girls, who are really trying to change the world that they grow up in. And I think that there’s something so powerful about that. And I think that it’s proof that when women speak, the world listens, and even if they don’t, they should – because even sometimes, they don’t. We have to be honest: Sometimes, they don’t. But they should, because I really think that there is this patriarchal narrative that young girls are very incapable of taking charge and leading, and this film and this organization is such proof that, no, actually, you can change the world, You can change your corner of the world, You can change another corner of the world – that it really does make a difference. And I think that there’s just something so empowering about the makeup of this documentary to begin with. Going back to the pad machine in general, some listeners might know that there are a lot of new alternatives to just traditional period products now. We have single-use pads and tampons. There are so many reusable products coming out now. From your perspective at the time that the documentary was happening, how did you know, or why did you know, that a pad machine would be the difference? Because I could see some people saying, “Oh, it would have been so much easier to just fundraise for period products and just ship that.” What was it about the pad machine, for people who might not have seen the documentary, that was so impactful?

MB: I think we were taken by all of the things that the pad machine could do for a community beyond providing pads. The first is providing pads – how great to have pads that people need that are accessed from locally sourced material. The machine is not complicated. We were attracted to the idea of women having employment and agency in that village at the time that we made the film. I can’t translate it accurately into dollars, though at one time I could, but I think that women were making something like what would be $1 a day. I can’t – I don’t – I can’t be sure of this, but making something very minimal for working in the fields all day farming. And with the pad machine, we were able to provide a wage that was four times as much as they had received working in the field. So that idea was very enticing and empowering to all of us and to the women. That’s part of the reason why this community wanted the machine, was because they wanted a different means of employment.

Also, the other big draw was the fact that the fact of the machine being present in the village worked to destigmatize menstruation in really beautiful and magical ways. When the machine was first put into the village, the women and girls kind of fibbed about it: “Oh, this is a Huggies diaper machine.” And the men didn’t really know what it was. At first, they were curious. Then they got suspicious and kind of angry. There’s a scene that we never captured in the film, sadly, because we couldn’t predict it, where one man in the village tries to shut it down, because he feels like, oh, something’s going on that he can’t control or have power over.

Ultimately, though, the film, sort of near the ending of the film, which is true in life, one of the very manly men of the village says, “I made a good pad!” He goes into the machine, and he makes, he makes his own pads. People in Kathikhera learn what menstruation is, and rather than being a source of shame, it’s this source of industry, employment. Women were very proud, and the boys and men around them also delighted and proud that there were now earners in the family that could support the family that weren’t there before. This isn’t going to be true of every community, but this is the way that the machine worked in this community. So those were a couple reasons why the machine, versus just supplying pads or – there are other kinds of pads or products, rather – but this was the product, this was the kind that we felt would accomplish what the maximum that we could do.

KH: Absolutely. And I think that you actually perfectly outlined what my next question was going to be, so I’m glad that you touched on that, that the pad machine was creating a sustainable microeconomy in this community. I think something that was so impactful for me was not just seeing how the women were empowered by being able to make the pads – by being able to sell the pads, by just having the pads, and the education and the access – was also seeing this transformation in the men” men who went from being very embarrassed and angry, and, “Oh, we don’t want to see that or talk about that or touch that,” to then being very excited about the fact that this was something that they can take part in, which I think is so important when you see how periods are everywhere. There’s probably somebody menstruating somewhere that you are right now.

MB: Yes! That’s right!

KH: Our world is built on that, as you had mentioned earlier. And so it is something, it was a very cool aspect to see that become very not just normalized but also celebrated in a way. My question for you then going off of that is, how do you think that men or people who don’t menstruate can be a part of this movement? I think it is really important to make sure that everybody is talking about it, because even if it is maybe a gendered issue in some respects or when you’re talking about the concept of menstruators even separate from gender or sex, it does impact maybe, necessarily, a specific demographic. So not all men or people who don’t menstruate can really see themselves participating. What would be your response to that?

MB: First, I want to say that we have met so many wonderful allies and brave men – Muruganantham right at the head of that list, who, of course, made this machine because he was upset that his wife had to choose between sanitary pads and food for the week. He went around in a makeshift kind of diaper with a goat bladder, squirting blood into this diaper that he made to make this machine. He went even further to kind of test what would work as a pad. And then he went further and did not, purposefully did not, get a patent on his machine because he wanted people to be able to duplicate that machine. So hats off to Muruganantham. That’s one.

I would say that one of my favorite comments I get from people who have watched “Period. End of Sentence.,” and our other film, “Long Line of Ladies,” is from people who are closer maybe to my age than young women – so fathers and dads – who say to me any number of times, “I’m so thankful for that film, because I want to be able to talk to my daughter in some way or understand what’s happening with her. But I feel shy. And this film gave us a safe way for me to kind of ask, ‘Are you in pain with your period?’” or whatever it is. Just this kind of way in, which I think is so lovely. Really, every family is going to be different. But I think some of the biggest contributors – whether it’s film advice when we were making the film, contributions legally when we were setting up the nonprofit – really came from so many fathers who wanted to support their daughters. It was really beautiful to see that. So many mothers and so many fathers in support of daughters. So in terms of young men becoming allies in this movement, I think that’s slower to happen. This year for the first year, and last year I guess was the first year, we had a young man at my high school who took on this mantle. His name is Diego, he’s wonderful, and he didn’t feel shy. He truly felt that it was his place as a human being to represent male allyship in this space. And now they’re following his lead, because he’s a senior and he’s fairly popular. Now there are two other young men who are willing to be, to come to Pad Project meetings here at Oakwood. So I think young men are going to feel shy and maybe embarrassed, or “This is not the place for me,” but I think slowly people are understanding. Just like with larger world issues like climate change, this is not a – we need everybody. And we need everybody to understand.

KH: Absolutely. I think that’s a perfect example of, sometimes, it just takes one. And it just takes one person to kind of bring the rest. And to your point about the fathers wanting to be involved, I think it’s sometimes, it’s not always a lack of wanting to but a feeling of not knowing how. So I think it’s so incredible that this documentary could be a way to start those conversations. I want to circle back on the inclusion of young men and the allyship of young men, because I truly do think that this is a human rights issue, a greater human rights issue, especially as you look at it in terms of poverty and access to education. I think also that what we’ve seen is that when women succeed, so do countries. So does the world. That having women in schools, having women in the workforce, empowering them with knowledge, with access really is beneficial on a GDP level, on this greater societal level. It benefits their children. It helps break cycles of poverty. And so that’s what I think is really essential for people to understand is: It may not be you, it may not even be your city, but it’s your world, and it really is so interconnected.

I want to very briefly mention before I turn it back to you, that UCLA actually is mandated to have free menstrual products in the campus bathrooms. Yes. I, with, in connection to Free The Period and The Pad Project – that was a bill that we had worked on for a while lobbying for, and it passed, I think, maybe around two or three years ago now. So that was very cool to work on. And for the Bruins out there, there are resources available to you if you need products. We have BruiNecessities. There are so many clubs and organizations on campus for you. As we kind of wrap up our discussion, do you still have a relationship with the women in the documentary? What has – has there been kind of a continuation post-filming?

MB: Absolutely. So first of all, we’re really, we’re really excited that for those who have seen the film there, the central character is who is – it’s a documentary, so a real person – her name is Sneha, and she is an aspiring police officer who uses the wages that she makes from the pad machine to pay for police school. And the other central figure is Suman, who has the pad machine in her home. And when we – my daughter and other students and I – went to the village to screen the film for the first time, which was projected on a bedsheet onto one of the houses in the village with all the women in the village gathered around and sitting on the floor, it was really emotional and beautiful. We were so scared that they might not like the film. They loved the film. Later, almost a year later – six or seven months later – they came with us to be at the Academy Awards ceremony, which was so exciting. Four of them. Gouri Choudari, who is a hero and an activist who was 80 years old when she started this with me, came to the Academy Awards. She passed away two years ago, so we’re looking to do something in her honor with Action India, which is the community with whom we are still in relationship and in partnership. The two central figures in the movie, Sneha and Suman – after the Academy Award was won, they became activists and heroes back in their hometown of northern India near Delhi. There was actually a political campaign going on at the time, and so politicians were like, “Oh, we want to, you know, have you talk before our audiences.” And so they became activists and advocates in their own right and are still wonderful menstrual equity advocates. The machines that you see in the film now – or the machine – is very outdated. And so now there are actually – instead of one machine, there’s two machines, and they’re very updated. “FLY” pads – which is the name that they chose to give their pads so that women and girls could soar – they now sell FLY pads to school schools nearby and around the community. So they’re doing great.

KH: That’s so cool to hear how that work has continued. Speaking of the future, first of all, what is it – do you get a reaction from new students having, “Oh, my teacher’s an Oscar winner”? Is it – Oakwood is – that is very in-fashion for Oakwood, as you mentioned, but do you ever get students come up to you, you know, fangirling a little bit? What has that experience been like?

MB: Yes! I love it! Sometimes – and I fangirl with them too – sometimes I, because they, they’re so inspiring and the things that they say. But sometimes people ask, “Oh, where do you keep your Oscar?” That’s like, a favorite question. And mine is literally in a book bag because I often bring it to class, because it’s fun or funny to have as a prop and we’re talking about things. And so students do like to take selfies with the Oscar. That’s a lot of fun. They like to hold it, practice the speech for when they win the Oscar. And I bring it around to other schools. And it’s very useful. It’s very wonderful that something – you know, Oscars are known for a lot of things. For me, it’s been very moving and powerful that the Oscars ceremony gave us a platform to give that message, which actually funded our nonprofit. Because we had that world stage and that moment, enough people saw. There were so many donations of really small amounts, but so many of $5 and $10 from all over the world from seeing the film. We’re seeing that moment on the Oscar. We were actually able to kind of launch as a nonprofit, and that is thanks to the power of film and a little bit to the power of the Oscar lore, which is really exciting to be a part of and very special.

KH: Definitely. I’m sure – I think I myself definitely had some fangirl moments. I think I still do, but especially in the beginning. For listeners who might be interested in learning more, you can go to The Pad Projects’ website, thepadproject.org. They have an ambassador program that I joined the first year that it opened, and I remember I, you know, we got our advisors, and I was like, “This is so crazy that I’m working with the people who are on that stage.” Speaking of the nonprofit itself, I know that you guys have projects nationally, internationally. Do you have any ideas of what is next for you, for the organization?

MB: Well, I would draw people to our newest film, which is called, “Long Line of Ladies,” which is a New York Times op-doc, which tells the story of young Ahty as she prepares for her flower dance, her Ihuk, which is a ceremony that the Karuk family does to recognize a girl’s coming of age. It is – you see everyone in a community having just a ceremony and celebration of a girl having her period. When I showed that to my students here, they’re like, if that happened to me when I had my period – I was like, in a Walgreens. My sister throws me a pad and says, “Deal with it.” So I think that that movie shows the direction that I think we want to go, which is one of celebration rather than stigmatization.

There’s that, and then there’s all kinds of ways – we’re so grateful, Kayla, for people like you who take on this mantle and become such kickass ambassadors and advocates and do such great work. And there is an ambassador program and ways to get involved on our website, www.thepadproject.org, and you can see all the countries where we’re working and how we’re working in the United States. There’s a new movement out front called the Period Positive Workplace, so that when you all graduate and get into your various jobs, your workplace ought to be a period-positive workplace and provide products, and even period leave is on the table. So how about that? So I think there’s a lot of work to do and a lot of exciting and creative ways that people are banding together for menstrual justice.

KH: Absolutely. Being in this space for a few years now, it’s been very cool to see the changes and the developments. And thank you for all the work that you do. My last question to wrap us up, and you mentioned this a little bit earlier – but for UCLA students, do you have any advice, whether it be related to changemaking or just their college experience in general?

MB: I would say, ignore the naysayers. Trust your gut. Trust yourself. Trust others too, that if you have a dream for whatever cause and you know in your heart that it’s right and it’s just, the people that you need will be there. You don’t have to be an expert. You are all experts now that you’ve gotten a great degree at UCLA and you know things, but you don’t have to be an expert. You just have to surround yourself and trust and stick to your vision.

KH: I love that. This was such an honor. Melissa Berton, thank you so much for coming on the show and for speaking with me. This has been such a full circle experience for my personal journey, and I’m so excited that I get to share a little bit of you and the important work that you do with the Daily Bruin and the Bruin community. So thank you so much for being on.

MB: Thank you, Kayla, it was an honor to be with you.

KH: Bruin to Bruin is brought to you by Daily Bruin Podcasts. You can listen to this show and all Daily Bruin podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and the audio and transcript is available at dailybruin.com. I’m Kayla Hayempour. Thanks for listening.