Zanele Maduna

What does your company do?

No-Valo Learning Centre is a black female-owned, Level 1 BBBEE accredited Skills Development Provider with a bold mission: to break the cycle of poverty through education, empowerment, and opportunity. We specialise in Study Skills, Psychosocial Support, and Work-Readiness Training—directly addressing three of the most pressing barriers facing South African youth today: academic underperformance, mental health struggles, and chronic unemployment. Through a business-to-business model, we partner with bursary funds, scholarship programmes, employers, and higher education institutions to deliver tailored interventions to their students and graduates. Our aim is to help end-users succeed academically, build emotional resilience, and transition into meaningful, future-ready careers. Our work actively contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth), and SDG 1 (No Poverty)—demonstrating that scalable impact and economic inclusion can go hand in hand.

What is your biggest success?

Our biggest success has been building a purpose-led, high-impact business that delivers measurable results for both our clients and their students. Highlights include: • Onboarding over 10,000 students onto our e-learning platform • Launching the No-Valo App to improve learner access and engagement • Maintaining a consistent 4.3+ satisfaction rating from live sessions • Achieving formal QCTO accreditation • Generating over R1.2 million in revenue annually for the past three years • Creating 20+ full-time jobs and part-time opportunities for coaches and facilitators • Launching the Hunger Alleviation Project through the No-Valo Foundation • Being recognised as Leading Entrepreneur of the Year by AWCA These milestones reflect our commitment to scaling impact, creating employment, and delivering real outcomes in education, resilience, and youth development.

What has been your biggest hurdle?

Our biggest hurdle has been balancing impact, sustainability, and scale within the constraints of project-based revenue. Most clients engage us for short-term interventions—bootcamps, 3-month projects, or 12-month cycles—which makes long-term planning and talent retention difficult. We’re deeply committed to youth employment and work-integrated learning, often onboarding TVET interns into administrative roles. However, limited cash flow means we struggle to retain experienced staff to manage and mentor them. This results in a cycle of training new team members every 12–18 months. Funding to scale our infrastructure—both human and digital—remains elusive, and while we’ve created full-time jobs, many team members earn entry-level wages, which understandably affects morale. Despite these hurdles, we remain resilient, continuously reinvesting into our systems, seeking strategic partnerships, and remaining committed to building a business that transforms lives, even when growth is hard-won.