A life rebuilt, braid by braid.

Nicole Tshani arrived in Kampala from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. She brought almost nothing, no family network and no capital. What she did bring was the braiding craft her mother had taught her.

She started braiding clients on a Kibuli street corner to pay her rent. Over the next two decades she built one of the most respected salons in the neighbourhood, and began employing other women who had arrived in the city the way she once did.

In 2023 Nicole and her husband Claude founded Tshani Foundation so that no woman without schooling or savings would have to walk that road alone. It was formally incorporated as a Ugandan indigenous NGO on 3 April 2023.

The Foundation now operates across Kampala, Wakiso, Jinja and Mukono, with outreach into the Nakivale, Kyaka II and Adjumani refugee settlements. More than 250 women have passed through its training floor. Most are earning within weeks of graduating.

Mission

To train vulnerable women, including refugees and women without formal schooling, in a craft they can turn into a livelihood, and to back them with business mentorship and the financial tools they need to keep that livelihood going.

Vision

A Uganda where every vulnerable woman and girl has the skills, the capital and the network she needs to earn with dignity and raise her children without fear.