Mano A Mano International Partners

Our current Strategic Plan (2021-2025) has 3 priority goals:
1. Implement our Punata Regional Complex project in Bolivia (read about on our website here: https://manoamano.org/blog/work-continues-on-mano-a-manos-runway-at-the-punata-regional-complex/).
2. Maintain Mano a Mano's current projects & programs in the US and Bolivia.
3. Expand the capacity of our US office.

Mano a Mano partners with Bolivian communities on projects that they present to us; we try to partner with as many as possible but cannot meet the need without additional funding.

We have an active backlog of more than 300 requests from communities for clinics, schools, roads, water projects, and others. Our goal is to reduce this backlog as much as possible in order to improve the lives of as many people as possible.

Mano a Mano was started in 1994 in Minnesota with the goal of saving usable medical supplies from the landfill and sending them to Bolivia, where we knew that they could be put to use. We continue to collect supplies, with the goal of saving as many pounds of good supplies and recycling them by putting them to use in Bolivia.

Every project that Mano a Mano does is in partnership with a number of different groups, with each group contributing a piece that allows us to do large infrastructure projects for relatively little funding.

The Bolivian communities, their municipalities, the Bolivian Government, and Mano a Mano staff and volunteers in Bolivia contribute heavily, but most projects are only able to get off the ground with seed money that is raised by Mano a Mano in the US.

To help reach more communities Mano a Mano is working to expand its reach in the US to increase our volunteer and donor base, and ultimately allow us to build more projects in Bolivia that are desperately needed.

Mano a Mano's partnership model is well-established; to date we have constructed more than 1,243 community infrastructure projects throughout Bolivia, and all of them are still in operation with little direct funding from Mano a Mano.

We are able to bring together many different groups, in different countries, to complete sustainable projects that none of us could do on our own.

To date, Mano a Mano has completed the following projects:
Shipped 4,000,000 pounds of medical, school, and construction supplies to Bolivia that would have ended up in Minnesota landfills. We shipped 180,180 pounds from Minnesota to Bolivia in 2021.
Built 178 clinics that provide comprehensive health care access to more than 700,000 Bolivians.
Constructed or improved 1,949 kilometers (1,211 miles) of roads helping isolated communities connect to larger markets. Travel time can be reduced from days to a few hours.
Constructed 9 large agricultural water reservoirs, 458 water ponds (atajados), and 69 wells, projects that directly benefit more than 60,000 people. Access to water improves crop yields and quality for Bolivian farmers, which improves nutrition and can double or triple a family's income.
Built 66 schools, along with teacher housing and community bathrooms, that provide access to quality education to rural children.
Provided emergency air rescue to more than 4,107 patients for life-saving medical treatment.
Built 274 greenhouses for rural Bolivian farmers to improve nutrition and food security for their families.
In addition to the mentioned infrastructure projects, Mano a Mano provides education & training workshops in health, education, and agriculture, as well as a number of other projects.
There is currently a long backlog of Bolivian communities on our waiting list for each of our program areas. Our primary goal is to continue to respond to communities' requests for new projects while also maintaining our previously built projects, so that we can continue to improve quality of life for Bolivians in need. We are also always looking at ways to improve and adapt our programs to better meet people's needs.