01
Girls who dropped out of school
School ended early. Capability did not. Training restores a route to earning.
Our mission
Started to equip, not to hand out
A social enterprise and economic empowerment organisation equipping excluded women, girls and youth with market-relevant skills, real production experience and pathways to income.
Founder
“Poverty should not have the last word.”
Pastor Matilde Nono
Founder & Team Leader
Vision
A community where excluded women, girls and youth are economically empowered — earning, producing and living with dignity rather than depending on aid.
Mission
To equip vulnerable women, girls and youth with practical, market-relevant skills, real production experience and pathways to income, while building enterprises that help sustain the mission.
Motto
“Being Someone's Reason to Smile”
Our objectives
The main objectives for which this foundation was established
Recorded here in the same order as the organisational profile.
Community empowerment and poverty alleviation
To carry out community empowerment and poverty alleviation programmes.
Skills for youth and community leaders
To provide youth and community leaders with necessary skills to improve household incomes.
Guide philanthropic investment
To guide philanthropic investment decisions by helping philanthropic investors deploy their capital to deliver outcomes for their projects.
Orphanages and foster care
To establish and run orphanages, foster care homes and to provide support to vulnerable and needy communities.
Business and partnerships
To carry out the business and partnership with Government or its agencies, departments and other companies whether private or public and the general public for the supply of agriculture produce, animal breeds, feeds and other items.
Educational institutions
To set up, establish and manage such other education institutions or such other school or schools, or college or colleges where students may obtain, on modern terms, a sound academic, classical, mathematical, scientific and general education of the highest order.
Technical, scientific, cultural and business education
To provide academic technical, scientific, cultural and business education in Uganda through provision of instruction to those admitted to the school.
Practical, disciplined education
To provide practical education geared towards producing disciplined, practical and self-reliant youth.
Arts, sciences and technology
To engage in any educational field such as arts, sciences, technology and beneficially carried out at the school.
Talent development
To educate the youth to exploit their talents in music, dance and drama.
Nono Caring Hearts Foundation aims at putting a smile on the less privileged ones, but with your contribution and support it can reach a greater milestone.
The founder
Pastor Matilde Nono
FROM COMPASSION TO A MODEL OF OPPORTUNITY
During door-to-door evangelism in Namataba, Kirinya, Pastor Matilde discovered a place full of vulnerable people — older men and women who had not been able to afford a bath in a long time.
She sat with them and asked how she could help. Most gave the same answer: they had no soap, and they could not afford food.
What we do
Care → Skills → Production → Income → Dignity
One continuous pathway, not a set of disconnected activities.
- 01
Care
Reaching excluded women, girls and youth and building the stability and confidence needed to begin.
- 02
Skills
Practical, market-relevant training in production, quality and enterprise fundamentals.
- 03
Production
Real production experience inside the Nono Caring Hearts Foundation product enterprise, not classroom simulation.
- 04
Income
Earnings through employment, supply, micro-enterprise and market access.
- 05
Dignity
From dependence to economic agency: makers, workers, entrepreneurs and business owners.
- 06
Community Transformation
Income re-enters households and communities, and trained women train others.
Who we serve
Who gets a second chance?
The people most often written off by the labour market — and most able to change a household when someone finally invests in them.
02Young and teenage mothers
Skills that fit around a child, and income that makes motherhood survivable.
03Single mothers
One income carrying a whole household. We help make that income dependable.
04Widows
Livelihoods rebuilt after loss, with production work that pays from the start.
05Unemployed youth
A trade, real production hours and a market — not another certificate.
06Out-of-school youth
Practical learning for young people the classroom no longer holds.
07Vulnerable families
When one member starts earning, the whole household steadies.
08Refugees and host communities
Training that includes both sides of a shared neighbourhood, not one at the cost of the other.
09People living with economic exclusion
No capital, no collateral, no contacts. We open the door to the market anyway.
Founder voice
How we handle storiesAWAITING A REAL STORY
This slot is reserved for a real, consented voice. It stays empty until one is recorded and approved.
Founder
Community voices
How we handle storiesAWAITING A REAL STORY
This slot is reserved for a real, consented voice. It stays empty until one is recorded and approved.
Community member
Our approach
Equip, then follow through to income
Four commitments shape every programme we run.
Equip, do not only give
Every intervention is judged by what a person can do — and earn — afterwards.
Train inside real production
The workshop is the classroom. Trainees learn on real batches for real customers.
Follow through to income
Training is not the finish line. Employment, supply or micro-enterprise is.
Build for permanence
A costed, phased centre at Kirinya so the work does not depend on borrowed space.
Community outreach
Care did not stop when skilling started
Alongside training and production, the foundation continues the community work it began with.
Community care and support
Continued practical care for the most vulnerable households the foundation serves.
Mobilisation and mentoring
Identifying, encouraging and accompanying women, girls and youth into the programme.
Trained women training others
Graduates pass on skills locally, extending reach beyond the centre.
Future vision
Where this is going
A permanent centre, greater capacity, and a growing share of costs covered by what Nono Caring Hearts Foundation earns.
- 01
Complete and equip the Kirinya Skilling & Empowerment Centre.
- 02
Grow annual training capacity and add new skilling programmes.
- 03
Expand the Nono Caring Hearts Foundation product enterprise and institutional supply.
- 04
Move a growing share of running costs onto earned income.
Voices
Trainees, makers and business owners
Recorded with consent, in their own words.
“PLACEHOLDER — a trainee's own words, recorded with consent, about skills, work and income.”
PLACEHOLDER — name
Trainee / maker
“PLACEHOLDER — a graduate's own words about the enterprise or employment they now run.”
PLACEHOLDER — name
Graduate / business owner
Take the story forward with us
Nono Caring Hearts is building a place where women build their futures. You can fund a phase, equip a workshop, sponsor a trainee or give in kind.
And behind that contribution is a person who gets another chance to learn, create, work and move forward.
Build with us. Help build the next chapter.
Social enterprise
The workshop pays part of its own way
Trainees learn on real production. The products are sold. Earned income helps sustain training instead of the mission depending on aid alone.
Training inside production
The workshop doubles as the classroom — real batches, real quality standards.
Products people buy
Bar and liquid soap, household products, gift and corporate sets.
Revenue back into skilling
Earned income funds materials, places and the next cohort.