Fundación M&M Formando Líderes
M&M Para Todos ( M&M For Everyone) is one of my foundation's projects. The goal of this project is to build a network of connections. One facet of our mission is to train teenage volunteers. When they are able to teach we go to the most remote rural areas of our state to give qualified education for those girls and boys that have never had access. To form relationships and to make education an important subject for rural folk has been a huge challenge. Nevertheless, M&M For Everyone has been an enormous success. We have achieved the goal of teaching to eighty-seven children and teenagers in seven remote areas of my state, Casanare, where other entities don’t have enough outreach.
Villanueva Casanare is a small town far away from the Colombian capital. Children here can only count on the public education which is really detrimental. It is not only the quality of education that can damage the future of children but the pornografy and levels of drug addiction (5%). The number of teenagers who are able to assist university in this town is only 6%. There are nearby illegal crops and illegal armed groups that are looking for children and teenagers. Although there are no official figures, the number of youngsters involved grows every day.
Our organization has its headquarters in the urban area of Villanueva. There we assist about 70 children every year. We have national and foreign expert volunteers. However, the most challenging part of this project is to go to remote rural areas in the region. We raise funds to go every Friday to those areas with volunteers to teach children. Most children and teenagers from these regions have never had the opportunity of receiving qualified education. Since the illegal armed groups operate in those areas, they are sometimes involved with them, making education the boring way to success.
Girls and boys from 7 to 16 years old are the targets of our project. We have shown them that education is the solution for their lives. We are teaching them to love education, however hard it is for them to change their minds. Our non-profit organization can assist these children only once a week because transportation is really difficult.
- Promote the assessment and recognition of skills developed outside the formal educational system
Through education, we are changing the future of many children and our entire region. My foundation “M&M: Formando Lideres” (M&M: Creating Leaders) has the specific goal of training the leaders that my nation and the world need. In September 2019 the Presidency of Colombia acknowledged that our innovation in education is a great contribution to our state and thereby our entire nation. We were invited to the One Young World conference in London to present this project to leaders from all over the world. In the same year, the government of the United States of America selected one of our members (Paula Bejarano) for its program Youth Ambassadors to represent Colombia. Juan Lesmes, one of the young leaders that my foundation has been guiding in his qualified education. Juan was invited, in March 2020, by the United Nations to its annual anti-drug conference in Vienna, Austria to present our anti-drug project that we developed for our state. Our latest achievement was with Ana Mojica. She was chosen by the German government with its program Cross Culture Programme to represent Colombian in 2021.
- Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth.
We have been working on this project for more than five years. This is the opportunity for making this purpose grow even more. With the correct support, we could be able to assist more rural disadvantaged children.
- A new business model or process that relies on technology to be successful
The traditional way of facing problems related to education is with programs designed tens of years ago. My organization works with young tutors who base their teachings on technology. Technologic devices are common among children here. The difficult task is to teach them to use them in the right way. We are always learning with platforms like Coursera and Edx. These let us have the best universities in the world in our curriculum.
Our key to be updated and in the same status as the best schools and organizations in my country are the platforms and apps that let us learn and manage all our goals.
- Audiovisual Media
The platforms that we use do not present any risk for our students. The access to devices does present a problem.
- Women & Girls
- Children & Adolescents
- Poor
- Colombia
- Venezuela, RB
Currently 100
One year 200
Five years 500
The project that the organization has been leading began with about 20 beneficiaries. Nowadays, we assist 100 children. Our growth has been really meaningful for the region because we are changing the life of every child that comes to our organization. The next year we hope to assist 50 children more. This will be able with the growing network that the organization has been building. With the fellowship that Ana Mojica won in Germany, the internship in UNESCO and the efforts to build connections with the local goverment.
The knowledge of English as a second language is quite important to succeed in developing countries like Colombia. We are managing that the figures of bilingualism rise. This goal let teenagers to choose freely the future that they want.
- Nonprofit
Full staff 4 people
Volunteers 8 people
Our permanent staff has a C1 level of English, a bachelor's degree, pedagogy diploma and is always studying.
Our part time staff is composed by foreign volunteers who have bachelor's degree and nationals who are studying at the university right now.
Colombia, especially my state is facing the illegal migration problem. This state is located near Venezuela what means that hundreds of Venezuelan families are arriving in this town. The Colombian population is facing xenophobia for the first time. My organization gives protects Venezuelan kids, giving them shelter, food and high qualified education.
- Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)
Our non-profit organization is changing the future of tens of children in this remote area from Colombia. We know that the children who need us more are those who live in rural areas. We have arrived at some remote populations but there is more to be done. With suitable transport we could go more often to those communities and begin to visit a lot that are needing from us.
- Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
To make our project bigger we would need all these children to assist to our headquarters. For that purpose transport and more expert tutors are needed. We know that to grow a lot is really difficult, that is why we want to begin with transport for tutors to rural areas. After that, we could think about a larger growth
We would like to partner with American universities. We would like to learn how to get our children in those universities.