‘The country needs leaders with the best preparation’

The development and future of the country depends on leadership with the best preparation and ethical standards in the regions, which promote projects and systemic actions so that over the years we can see the transformations. This is what ex-minister Paula Moreno warns, when explaining the progress of the Visible Hands Corporation.

What has the work of Manos Visibles focused on?

Manos Visibles has an effective commitment to greater diversity in the political, economic and cultural elites that make decisions from the public, private and non-profit sectors in the country. For this reason, since 2013, for more than a decade, we have had a postgraduate scholarship fund that has supported the master’s degree training of more than three hundred professionals, mostly from the Pacific and from ethnic communities in the country, at universities that occupy the first places of educational quality such as Icesi or Los Andes.

What are the goals?

Strengthen our network and ourselves as an organization, because we know that several decades are required to see the systemic transformation that transcends symbolic representation, which translates into an improvement in the quality of life of the communities. We have planted a lot of seed these twelve years, some have flourished, others have barely come out of the ground and appear, others withered, in short.

Our task now is to accompany, expand our work in technology and narratives to continue contributing effectively to racial and territorial equity in Colombia, always connected with our international agenda with the African diaspora.

What are the indicators for 2022?

We have impacted more than 25,000 people and 200 organizations in 112 municipalities. Many of these leaders trained in Manos Visibles are ministers, mayors, they direct international cooperation programs, they are visible talent from ethnic and territorial diversity to the world.

What is the achievement with Icesi?

From the Ethnic Power Fund, together with the Icesi University and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), we have promoted a generation of managers and entrepreneurs who promote transformations in strategic areas of the Pacific territories and their diaspora in the large urban centers of the country. That is why we promoted the Ethnic Business Power generation within the framework of our AvanzaPacífico program, so that more than 30 leaders of the region could advance Master’s studies in the Faculty of Administration.

Within the framework of the Master’s program, emphasis was placed on the development and specialized support that resulted in 26 regional projects that can generate hundreds of jobs in six prioritized clusters, including cocoa in Northern Cauca, Education for employment, technology and tourism.

Why promote the business fabric of the Pacific?

We are not going to have peace as long as there are no legal and dignified work alternatives in the territories. This is critical for the Pacific coast. Today Quibdó registers the country’s unemployment rate, at the Latin American level it occupies the highest homicide rate in several Mexican cities, and all this has a causality in the lack of institutionality and a business fabric that enables the agency of an economy own law.

For this reason, these types of initiatives are so important because what we have learned at Manos Visibles is that the development and future of the country depends on leadership with the best preparation and ethical standards in the regions, which promote projects and systemic actions so that we can see the transformations. A solid business fabric can be a strong counterweight to the institutional challenges, we are helping to form it, now we are left with the issues of extortion and crime, which we hope the State will address in some way soon.

What is the effect?

First, a generation specialized in business issues from, to and with the Pacific, visible references of the need and viability of entrepreneurship and the region. The main benefit is the scalability that several productive commitments are achieving as Herencia Guapireña with all the economic democratization of Viche, ensuring that it does not remain in the hands of outside businessmen, but that the quality of the product and its main distribution is at the forefront of the leaders. Pacific business.

What other types of alliances do you have in place?

Within the framework of the Ethnic Power Fund, Manos Visibles has alliances with two other universities to train leaders in key areas. With Los Andes, we trained 60 leaders in the Master’s Degree in Development Management and Practice. Likewise, with the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, we trained a group of 43 leaders, in the master’s degree in Management and Cultural and Audiovisual Production.

We aspire to transform the narratives of the communities, reduce the territorial gaps in the production of literary, audiovisual and musical content, through training. In this way, more than 150 scholars will be graduating from our different programs this year.

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