Mano A Mano International Partners

Mano a Mano is a small nonprofit that has a huge impact in Bolivia.

We started in 1994 with the goal of saving surplus medical supplies from the landfill in Minnesota and shipping them to Bolivia, where we knew these supplies were desperately needed and could be used immediately.

The Beginning

Mano a Mano's co-founder, Segundo Velasquez, was born in Bolivia and grew up there before moving to Minnesota as an adult. His brother Jose, a pediatrician working in Bolivia, would ask Segundo to bring medical supplies back home whenever he traveled back to visit family. Over the years the amounts grew from a few items in a suitcase to multiple extra suitcases. In 1994 Segundo and his wife and Mano a Mano co-founder Joan Velasquez (a former Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia) came together with friends and family to collect enough surplus medical supplies and equipment to equip the hospital in Bolivia that Jose managed.

Mano a Mano Today

From our humble beginnings collecting surplus medical supplies with a volunteer staff of Joan and Segundo's friends and family, we have now grown into constructing large-scale infrastructure projects throughout Bolivia. Our projects focus on basic needs that improve many different components affecting a communities' quality of life, including health, education, sanitation, water, and empowerment. Every project we do is done in collaboration with the community; they are expected to contribute funding and volunteer labor, and they are responsible for co-administration of the project upon its completion. In this way we ensure that there is local support and that the project will last over the long-term. Here are some of our accomplishments:

• Distributed more than 3 million pounds of surplus medical supplies and equipment from Minnesota to hospitals and clinics throughout Bolivia
• Built 124 community health care clinics that are co-administered by the communities
• Built schools, teacher housing, and community bathrooms in 42 communities
• Constructed or improved more than 1,400 kilometers of road
• Built 3 large-scale agricultural water reservoirs which serve 2,000-5,000 people each
• Built 145 atajados (small water ponds for 1-3 Bolivian farm families)
• Provided emergency air rescue to 982 Bolivians from rural areas to city hospitals for urgent care

How does my donation help?

We have been able to accomplish a lot on a very limited budget, and our projects have extremely impressive results. For our 3 large water reservoirs, average income for families has doubled or tripled as a result of improved crop quality and quantity; our water projects also provide a means to store water long-term, which is critical these past few years with drought conditions.

Mano a Mano's road projects allow these isolated communities to take advantage of increased crop harvests by transporting them to city markets. The clinics have remarkably improved child mortality outcomes - on average the rural child mortality rate is 8%, and in our clinics it is reduced to 0.48%.

But the need is great. We still need your help to be able to reach into more communities that are asking to partner with us (currently we have 272 communities with active requests for clinic projects alone). The communities and the local governments in Bolivia do their part - they fund anywhere from 50% to 100% (in some cases) of the total cost and provide all the unskilled labor. We provide the technical and administrative support needed in order to make the project happen. Without Mano a Mano in the US and Bolivia almost none of these projects would have been completed. Our track record of building low-cost, high-quality infrastructure projects - that have the community and administrative support necessary to be sustainable over the long-term - is unparalleled.

We have the infrastructure in place in Bolivia to reach many more communities; all we need is the financial support to get these projects off the ground. Please join us in our efforts to improve the lives of impoverished Bolivians.