WHEN THEY SAW IT,
THEY COULDN'T LOOK AWAY
Client - SafeHands for Mothers / UK Home Office / British Humane Association
Deliverables: communication strategy, campaign concept, tagline, three films, film production, social media strategy, PR outreach
Making the Invisible Impossible to Ignore
STORO partnered with SafeHands for Mothers and the UK Home Office to create "Now That You Know, Say No To FGM", a film-led campaign that brought the hidden reality of female genital mutilation in the UK into sharp public focus. Three documentary-style films captured real, unscripted reactions to FGM. The campaign went viral, earned international press coverage, and remains a government-recommended resource used by the Metropolitan Police and frontline professionals today.
THE CHALLENGE
FGM affects thousands of girls in the UK, but public awareness is low, and the conversation is largely absent from the communities most affected. SafeHands for Mothers needed a campaign that could break through silence and stigma on a tight budget, with a single-day shoot. Nobody was talking to young men about FGM. That silence needed to change.
APPROACH
STORO developed the campaign concept, positioning knowledge as the turning point. Three films were produced: young men, young women, and a group of spiritual leaders and legal professionals. Participants watched a reconstruction of an FGM procedure without knowing the subject in advance. Their genuine reactions were filmed in black and white, in a handheld, cinéma vérité style. STORO shaped the communications strategy and coordinated the launch on International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, targeting journalists and influencers globally.
IMPACT
International press coverage, including the Huffington Post, national newspapers, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow became a patron of SafeHands for Mothers
Films shared globally by hundreds of influencers, journalists, and community leaders
Adopted by the Metropolitan Police, UK government, and community workers as a training and education tool
Screened during Black History Month and still recommended by the government as a safeguarding resource
WHY THIS MATTERS
FGM is not a distant issue. It is a safeguarding crisis happening in the UK. But silence and stigma keep it hidden. Campaigns like this matter because they turn that silence into conversation, and conversation into action. By giving communities and professionals a way in, the work helped make a hidden problem visible and harder to ignore.
