Help Manuel is a foundation that thrives to improve the quality of life of “Base of the Pyramid” communities in Latin America. The foundation acts as a bridge provides contact between The Netherlands – Europe (professionals, organizations, companies and universities among others) & Colombia – Latin America (communities, local foundations, and local universities among others) promoting, applying and researching about “creative techniques” to improve the quality of life of less favored communities. The foundation´s primary focus is on how “design thinking” and “creative approaches” can help less favored communities.

Help Manuel foundation has an integral approach that consist in two divisions:

– A “knowledge centre” is the theoretical and research division providing support to the foundation, and

– Series of “creative workshops” with professionals, students and community members attempt to identify and solve problems related with design and development. These workshops are divided in three steps: hearing, creating and delivering inspired by the Toolkit for Human Centered Design created by IDEO.

Javier Ricardo Mejia Sarmiento