BWEN — the Buntu Wellbeing Experience Network — is a Ugandan organization that turns lived experience into community-designed solutions. We work at the intersection of sexual and reproductive health, dignity, storytelling, and citizen-led innovation, across Uganda and the wider IMAGI-NATION network.
We began in 2015 as the Wellbeing Foundation, established at Cavendish University in Kampala. The premise was simple and stubborn: the people closest to a problem are closest to its solution — they've just rarely been given the tools, the platform, or the trust to lead.
Over the following decade, that premise grew into a method. We built listening spaces, ran health and dignity programs, took hard conversations into the open through podcasts and public campaigns, and turned waste into runways of self-expression. What started as a foundation became a network — of parish leaders, young people, artists, facilitators, and partners.
Today we operate as BWEN, the Buntu Wellbeing Experience Network — the operating and brand name of THE WELL-BEING FOUNDATION LTD, registered in Uganda. "Buntu" draws on the philosophy of shared humanity: I am because we are. It is the thread through everything we build.
Our mission is to grow community wellbeing by putting design power in the hands of the people who live the challenges. We don't arrive with finished answers. We open a listening process, map what a community already knows, prototype together, and ship real things — then report honestly on what happened.
This is The Frame: our operating model of Community Solution Labs, School Clubs, the Shebang Trashion movement, and the Menstruation Station. Each is a tool for the same job — turning conversation into co-designed action on sexual and reproductive health, dignity, and opportunity.
The people closest to a problem lead the design. We build with, not for.
Every program starts from the worth of the person in front of us — no shame, no silence.
We report on a 90-day cycle — what we spent, what we shipped, what we learned.
The Wellbeing Foundation is founded at Cavendish University, Kampala, by Shyaka Farid Lwanyaaga and fellow public-health students. One question drove it: why is menstrual health written in textbooks but unspeakable in households? The question moved out of the lecture hall and into the streets.
A science and leadership course in Dar es Salaam produces the final paper that becomes the organisation's blueprint. Pad distribution begins in Kisenyi.
A capacity partnership with Wise Economy Global Association, funded by FORUM SYD, brings governance, project management, and advocacy method. The organisation registers. Weekly creative workshops run across five Kampala neighbourhoods — Kisenyi, Kamwokya, Namuwongo, Mengo, Kasubi.
The campaign launches on the My Period Is Awesome platform — the regional platform Shyaka co-designed with Wise Economy founder Terese Lann, shaping how it operated across its five years. The V-sign itself was sketched with Will Wensley of AIME during a mentoring trip in Australia. A workshop week with Sonke Gender Justice follows, and the Swedish Institute's Creative Force project (2019–21) begins.
The Station opens in Kisenyi III after a $13,000 fundraise led by Victoria Curro, then MD at M&C Saatchi's Lida in Australia. Free sanitary products, running water, washrooms, a resident counsellor, and tailoring, screen-printing and candle-making classes — around 6,000 visitors a year. In May, the global #NoPeriodShame campaign month reaches over 650,000 people across 17 countries and five continents, amplified by five Swedish embassies.
Creative Force delivers: 24 parish leaders trained in Kisenyi III, leaders in five Kamwokya zones, work travelling to Zaipi sub-county. The first Shebang Trashion show is held at MoTIV on Menstrual Hygiene Day (28 May), on menstrual health and the shame around it — seven designers, produced by Joram Murzia, led by Yasmin K.
Sexual and reproductive health and rights, in partnership with WUZI Africa's circular fashion. Conversations once silenced become public events.
The organisation becomes BWEN — Buntu Wellbeing Experience Network, the operating name of THE WELL-BEING FOUNDATION LTD. Shebang 3 is held at the Kampala Circular Design Hub: fashion as a civic and democracy tool, on the mental-health impacts of stigma and shame around sexual health and rights. It opened with a panel of Elizabeth Kibukamusoke (clinical psychologist), Dr. Anne Akello (obstetrician-gynaecologist), Jean Makki (economist, Circular Design Hub), Katende (IGC Fashion) and Julie R. Grier-Villatte (USAID Uganda) — days after the Anti-Homosexuality Act passed.
The runway moves into the Namuwongo-Kasanvu trash collection zone (20 July) with climate as the theme — featuring Musema Culture, Bobbin Case (KE), Quill Clothing, ORM barkcloth (UK/UG) and Njola Impressions. Covered by BBC, AFP, The Continent, Weekend Magazine (NY), Daily Monitor, NTV, NBS, New Vision and Bukedde. Uganda hosts the ReclAIMEd trashion alongside Sydney and New York through AIME.
The Station grows into a proof-of-concept hub: Innovation Centre, Network Residence, WUZI production, Shebang workshop. The Frame is formalised — 25 Community Solution Labs on 90-day cycles, 30 parish leaders, School Clubs and the SafeChat podcast. Over 120,000 people reached across Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa and Namibia.
Golden Agency Minerals operates as our ethical investment engine, connecting gold from Western Uganda to the communities that mine it. Next milestone: the National Hub.
BWEN is part of a global network of Indigenous-led systems design, working alongside AIME and the IMAGI-NATION network. Over the years our work has been supported by partners including the Swedish Institute, Wise Economy Global Association, Forum Syd, and Sonke Gender Justice.
We also build our own sustainability. Through our Shop, we sell the products and tools we design; through Golden Agency Minerals, we connect ethical gold to the communities that mine it. Both fund the work directly — so the mission grows on its own terms.
Buy the tools we build, sponsor a program, invest through Golden Agency, or simply follow the journey. Every path moves the mission forward.