Nono Caring Hearts equips excluded women, girls and youth with practical skills, real production experience and pathways to income — while building enterprises that help sustain the mission.
Why it matters
Nono Caring Hearts Foundation Uganda Ltd is a registered not-for-profit, incorporated as a company limited by guarantee, based in Kirinya, Bweyogerere.
We work with women and young people, helping them learn practical trades that people are already willing to pay for — from tailoring and hairdressing to baking, beauty, production and other hands-on skills.
But we believe training should not end when the class ends.
Alongside our skilling work, we run a small manufacturing and production business where trainees get to learn through real products, real customers and real orders. They begin to understand not only how to make something, but how to produce it well, price it, serve a customer and turn a skill into something that can earn.
We see every person who walks through our doors as more than a trainee. They are a future maker, supplier, entrepreneur, employer or business owner.
That is at the heart of what we do: training that leads somewhere — from skill, to work, to income, and ultimately to a livelihood.
Because the goal is not simply a certificate on the wall.
The goal is the confidence and ability to build something of your own.
The evidence
01
17.9% of Ugandans aged 15–24 are unemployed.
Uganda has one of the world’s youngest populations. The opportunity is to equip young people with practical, marketable skills that can translate into work, enterprise and sustainable income.
We turn skills into opportunity.
Source: Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Labour Market Survey 2025.
02
83.5% of Ugandans aged 15-29 work in informal employment.
That makes practical skills more than a qualification — they can be a pathway to earning.
From tailoring and baking to hairdressing, beauty and technical trades, we help young people develop skills they can take directly to the market.
Learn a skill. Create value. Earn.
Source: Ministry of Education & Sports, Uganda TVET Communication Strategy 2022–2026.
03
51% of Uganda's population is female.
When women have the skills and opportunity to earn, the benefits can extend beyond individual income — strengthening household resilience and creating greater capacity to meet essential needs such as food, education and healthcare.
Equip a woman. Strengthen a household.
Source: Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), National Population and Housing Census 2024; Uganda National Household Survey 2023/24.
The problem
Women, girls and young people carry determination and a willingness to work — and still find every door closed.
The gap
No training. No tools. No capital. No first customer. The gap is not willingness — it is access.
The response
A market-ready skill, a place to practise it, and a real route to a paying customer.
The method
Training happens on a working production line, so experience and income begin long before graduation.
The problem & the opportunity
Across our communities, women, girls and young people carry ability, determination and a willingness to work — and still find every door closed. No training. No tools. No capital. No first customer.
The gap is not willingness. It is access.
That is also the opportunity. Give a person a market-ready skill, a place to practise it and a route to a paying customer, and the same household that was surviving begins producing, earning and employing.
The Nono Caring Hearts Foundation response
Nono Skilling Centre runs one continuous pathway. A person is reached, trained, put onto real production, paid for real work, launched into enterprise — and supported as that enterprise grows.
Stage 01
A practical, market-ready trade taught by doing — not by lecture.
Stage 02
Real orders, real standards, real production on the Nono Caring Hearts Foundation line.
Stage 03
Earnings begin while learning, and continue through enterprise.
Stage 04
One earning household lifts others — apprentices, suppliers, neighbours.
The full pathway, stage by stage
We find the women, girls and youth others have written off.
Practical, hands-on skills taught to a market standard.
Trainees make real goods on real production lines.
Work, orders and wages begin while still learning.
Graduates start micro-enterprises with tools and mentorship.
Enterprises hire, supply and lift whole households.
Who we serve
The people most often written off by the labour market — and most able to change a household when someone finally invests in them.
School ended early. Capability did not. Training restores a route to earning.
Skills that fit around a child, and income that makes motherhood survivable.
One income carrying a whole household. We help make that income dependable.
Livelihoods rebuilt after loss, with production work that pays from the start.
A trade, real production hours and a market — not another certificate.
Practical learning for young people the classroom no longer holds.
When one member starts earning, the whole household steadies.
Training that includes both sides of a shared neighbourhood, not one at the cost of the other.
No capital, no collateral, no contacts. We open the door to the market anyway.
The programme — practical skills
Production & income
Trainees do not simply learn how soap is made. They make it, measure it, package it, cost it, price it, meet an order and serve a customer.
That is where confidence comes from — and where the first income arrives, long before graduation.
The Nono Star range
Nono Star is a Ugandan household and personal-care range: bar soap, bleach, washing-up liquid, multi-purpose cleaner, handwash, shower gel and instant hand sanitizer. Products are blended, filled, checked and packed in Kirinya in small, supervised batches, and supplied to homes, retailers and institutions.
Nono StarA firm, long-lasting laundry bar, cut, cured and wrapped in the Kirinya production workshop.
Primary useHand-washing clothes and general household laundry.
Nono StarHousehold bleach for whitening laundry and cleaning sanitary areas, filled under supervised batch procedures.
Primary useWhitening whites and cleaning bathrooms, sinks and floors.
Nono StarA concentrated dishwashing liquid blended in small, quality-checked batches for homes and busy kitchens.
Primary useDishes, cookware and kitchen surfaces.
Nono StarA multi-purpose liquid cleaner for floors, tiles, counters and bathrooms, filled in Kirinya in bulk institutional volumes.
Primary useFloors, tiles, bathrooms and general surface cleaning.
Nono StarA gentle, foaming hand wash in a pump bottle for everyday hand hygiene at home and at work.
Primary useDaily hand washing in kitchens, washrooms and workplaces.
Nono StarA richly foaming body wash with a papaya and licorice blend, filled in a 1 litre pump bottle.
Primary useDaily body cleansing at home and in hospitality settings.
Nono StarA quick-drying 75% alcohol hand sanitizer in a compact spray bottle, filled in Kirinya under supervised batch procedures.
Primary useHand hygiene on the go, where soap and water are not available.
Nono Star is produced in Kirinya as part of Nono Caring Hearts Foundation's wider social-enterprise and skilling model. See how the skilling model works
The social enterprise
Nono Caring Hearts Foundation is not a charity that happens to sell soap. Selling is part of the method: every purchase funds production, production is the classroom, and the classroom produces income-earning graduates.
The Kirinya centre
The model works. Space is the constraint. The Nono Skilling & Empowerment Centre brings training rooms, production workshops, equipment and enterprise activity together in one purpose-built home.
Building cost
UGX 0
Equipment requirement
UGX 0M–270M
Total capital envelope
Approx. UGX 0M–665M
Impact
2030 targets — not current results
0+
women, girls & youth trained
0+
graduate micro-enterprises
0%
of graduates earning within 12 months
0
fully built and equipped skilling centre
0%+
target running costs self-financed through Nono Caring Hearts Foundation products
0+
vulnerable people reached
The beginning
Pastor Matilde Nono
Founder & Team Leader
She did not set out to build an organisation. She set out to make sure that the people around her were not written off — and that care turned into skills, and skills into livelihoods.
READ HER STORY →Shop Nono Star Products
Household and personal-care products made by Nono Caring Hearts Foundation trainees — sold to households, schools, hotels and institutions across Uganda.
Two ways to be part of the journey
Purchasing products and providing catalytic funding are different forms of participation.
One keeps a social enterprise running; the other builds what comes next.
Both matter — and they are not the same thing.
Buy Nono Star products. Good products. Local production. A growing social enterprise.
Fund training, support apprentices, provide equipment, support the Kirinya centre, create placements or develop partnerships.
Buying is not donating. Buying a Nono Star product is a commercial transaction that sustains a social enterprise. Partnering with Nono Caring Hearts Foundation is catalytic support that builds skills, infrastructure and livelihoods. We welcome both — and we want every visitor to find the pathway that matches their intention.
Honest sustainability story
Nono Caring Hearts Foundation is an operating social enterprise — production runs, products are sold, and trainees earn real production experience. But we are still young, and the enterprise does not yet cover all Foundation costs. This is not failure. It is an honest description of an organisation in the process of building a sustainable model.
The Nono Star line is producing and selling, and trainees earn real production experience. Earned income is growing — but catalytic funding still carries the infrastructure, training capacity and development that the enterprise cannot yet fund on its own.
We are expanding production volume, building wholesale and institutional markets, and developing the training capacity of the Kirinya centre. Each of these raises the share of cost the enterprise can meet — and each takes investment to get there.
Our direction of travel is clear: over time, more of the Foundation's costs should be supported through earned income rather than grants. We report progress against this direction honestly, without setting a date we cannot defend with evidence.
“We know where we are. We know what we are building. And we are inviting the right partners to help us get there.”
We will not promise that Nono Caring Hearts Foundation will become fully self-financing by a particular date. That is a decision that must be formally adopted and supported by evidence — not a marketing line.
The invitation
Build a classroom. Equip a workshop. Sponsor a trainee. Buy a product. Open a door. Be Someone's Reason to Smile.
Skills · Production · Income
Support the Mission
