From NoPeriodShame to The Frame
In the heart of Kampala’s ghettos, BWEN started with a simple refusal: we will not let shame be the system. The work began as public health students organizing around menstrual stigma and the silence that kept girls and women boxed out of daily life.
We didn’t start with “programs.” We started with people, and the truth of what they were living.
The first proof: build the space the community asked for
In Kisenyi, that proof became a real place: the Menstruation Station - a pink house with a sign above the door that reads “My Period Is Awesome.” Opened in January 2020, it became a health hub, a safe space, and a skills and enterprise center—because dignity doesn’t live in slogans; it lives in infrastructure.
Then the signal went global: #NoPeriodShame
From that ground truth came a campaign language anyone could carry: hands forming a V-shape - a uterus made visible - held close to the heart as solidarity. The #NoPeriodShame campaign reached around 614,000 people, with contributions across 17 countries and five continents, sparking multi-sector conversation on stigma, taboo, and period poverty.
What mattered wasn’t “reach.” It was what reach unlocked: permission to speak, organize, and redesign norms in public.
We made storytelling a civic tool
Some conversations don’t move through reports. They move through culture.
That’s why BWEN built Shebang - using fashion and performance to turn the unsaid into something the public can’t ignore. Shebang has been documented as an approach that uses creative work to start conversations around menstruation and SRHR, and as a way to mobilize support for the Menstruation Station.
Today, Shebang stands as a wider systems-change runway - runway as civic tool, fashion as systems change turning waste, dignity, and public accountability into a shared stage.
The evolution: from “projects” to a national model
Over time, BWEN learned the deeper truth: the real work isn’t a single campaign. The work is a repeatable system: a way communities diagnose what’s broken, prototype solutions, and ship public goods.
That’s what became The Frame: relational community organizing + citizen-led solution labs + storytelling that moves policy and practice.
What’s new: BWEN is now building an investment pathway
Donations keep the lights on. Investment builds the grid.
BWEN is partnering with Golden Agency Minerals so people who want to contribute can do it through ethical gold investment not charity with transparent tracking and measurable community builds.
This is the shift:
Ethical sourcing with respect for land and people
Transparent returns you can follow
Measured builds; schools, clinics, long-term community agency
Returns you can track. Impact you can audit.