Meet Uri: Oui’s Official Little Drop of Sunshine 💛

He’s yellow. He’s a drop. And he would very much like us to stop being embarrassed about wee.

There are certain moments when you realise your urinary health campaign has taken on a life of its own.

Designing bracelets in the colour of urine? Reasonable.

Writing articles about bladder health? Entirely sensible.

Finding yourself emotionally invested in the facial expressions of a small yellow urine droplet?

Perhaps less predictable.

And yet, here we are.

So I think it is finally time for a proper introduction.

Everyone, meet Uri.

Uri is officially the mascot of Oui. 💛

Yes. He is a urine drop.

Let's address the obvious first.

Uri is, indeed, a little drop of wee.

A remarkably cheerful one, most of the time.

He has no legs, tiny droplet-shaped arms and an increasingly extensive collection of facial expressions.

And his name?

Uri.

As in urinary.

I never claimed subtlety was one of Oui's core values.

But there is actually a reason that our mascot is quite so unapologetically urinary.

Because one of the things Oui is trying to do is make something incredibly ordinary feel considerably less embarrassing to talk about.

And there are few things more ordinary than having a wee.

We need to make wee less awkward.

Urinary health has a peculiar problem.

Almost everybody wees.

Almost everybody will experience some kind of urinary symptom at some point in their life.

And yet words like bladder, urine, continence, catheter, stoma and UTI can still make perfectly sensible adults suddenly become extremely interested in looking at the floor.

That embarrassment matters.

Because urinary symptoms aren't embarrassing punchlines.

They can affect sleep.

Work.

Relationships.

Travel.

Confidence.

Independence.

Sex.

Mental wellbeing.

And sometimes they can be an important sign that somebody needs medical attention.

That's part of the reason Oui exists.

If we're going to make urinary health easier to talk about, somebody has to make the first conversation feel a little less frightening.

Apparently that somebody is now a small yellow droplet called Uri.

Why a mascot?

Health communication can become very clinical very quickly.

There is an important place for medical terminology, research papers and clinical guidance — and you'll find plenty of all three across Oui.

But sometimes people need another way into a conversation.

Something friendly.

Something memorable.

Something that makes you smile before asking you to think about something you might normally avoid.

That's where Uri comes in.

He isn't here to make light of urinary illness.

He's here to make talking about it feel lighter.

There is a difference.

Oui discusses subjects that can be frightening, frustrating, painful and deeply personal. UTIs. Continence. Urostomies. Neurological bladder and bowel dysfunction. Cancer. Body image. Patient safety. The realities of living in a body that doesn't always behave as expected.

I don't want to trivialise any of those experiences.

But I also don't think health communication has to be frightening in order to be taken seriously.

Sometimes a friendly little character can open a door that a medical diagram can't.

Uri has one very important job.

Actually, he has several.

Over time, you'll start spotting Uri across Oui.

He might help explain something.

He might point towards useful information.

He even has his own sticker collection, alongside the Oui bracelets.

Sometimes he may simply be there because a page about urine clearly needed more urine.

But underneath all of that is one job:

Uri is a conversation starter.

If somebody sees him and asks:

“What's that little yellow thing?”

Then suddenly we're talking.

About Oui.

About urinary health.

About why somebody should pay attention to changes in their urine.

About UTIs.

About bladder conditions.

About somebody's experience of living with a urostomy.

About something they have been worried about but haven't quite known how to bring up.

Maybe even about something they have never spoken about before.

And that is exactly what I want.

He also isn't a diagnostic urine chart.

An important little disclaimer before Uri develops an inflated sense of his own medical qualifications.

He is also not intended to represent a particular “healthy” urine colour.

Urine naturally varies in appearance and can change for lots of reasons. Oui has proper articles and links to reliable health information when we're talking about what changes might mean and when they should be checked.

Uri's colour is simply part of his character and Oui's visual identity.

Please do not hold your urine sample next to him for comparison.

He is spectacularly unqualified for that responsibility.

Why “Uri”?

I wanted him to have a proper name.

Not The Oui Drop.

Not Mr Wee.

Definitely not Urine McUrineface.

Although I accept that Great Britain has previous form in this kind of naming area.

Uri felt right.

It is short, friendly and just subtle enough that you might not immediately notice the urinary connection.

And once you do notice it, you can't really un-notice it.

Which feels rather appropriate for Oui.

There is something else Uri represents.

The more I've developed Oui, the more I've realised that its identity sits somewhere between two things.

There is the serious side.

Research.

Patient experience.

Awareness.

Evidence.

Healthcare.

Advocacy.

Conversations about things that genuinely need to change.

And then there is the other side.

Bracelets.

Illustrations.

Colour.

History.

Curiosity.

Silly jokes about wee.

A little yellow droplet with tiny arms.

I don't think those things compete with each other.

I think they make each other possible.

People don't always engage with health information because somebody tells them that they ought to.

Sometimes they engage because something catches their attention.

Because it feels human.

Because it makes them curious.

Because it makes a difficult subject feel safe enough to approach.

Uri represents that part of Oui.

And he's already developing quite the personality.

There is cheerful Uri.

Confused Uri.

Concerned Uri.

Excited Uri.

And, inevitably, grumpy Uri.

I suspect there will be considerably more to come.

Because urinary health isn't one emotion.

Sometimes living with illness is frightening.

Sometimes it's exhausting.

Sometimes it's infuriating.

Sometimes something finally goes right and you want to celebrate it.

And sometimes the only reasonable response to whatever your bladder has decided to do that day is to look exactly like grumpy Uri.

He contains multitudes.

For a drop of wee.

So, welcome to Oui, Uri 💛

Oui began with a fairly simple idea:

What if we made urinary health easier to talk about?

That idea has become articles, research conversations, patient advocacy, bracelets, illustrations and an ever-growing list of things I never imagined I'd be doing when I started.

And now it has a mascot.

A tiny, cheerful reminder that urinary health belongs in ordinary conversation.

Not hidden away.

Not whispered.

Not treated as shameful.

And definitely not something we should be too embarrassed to ask about.

So if you see a little yellow face appearing around Oui from now on, you'll know who he is.

His name is Uri.

He's a drop of wee.

And he's here to get us talking.

Welcome to Oui, little guy. 💛

Oui. Together, we can.