Based in Miami, Florida, Sumando Manos Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children and adolescents from economically challenged areas in Argentina. Its founders, a group of friends residing in Miami, share the same vision of intolerance towards idleness when being able to help in times of pressing needs.
The organization emphasizes financial responsibility and transparency. It has implemented a strict accounting and financial reporting system to ensure all funding is allocated and used accordingly. Furthermore, cash is rarely sent. Instead, work is done directly under the supervision of people from Sumando Manos.
In addition, the foundation’s website features a map with precisely marked locations where Sumando Manos has realized projects, as well as charts displaying its activities, primary sources of funding, and fundraising activities.
Most Sumando Manos’ projects cover areas in the north of Argentina where more than half of the population lives under the poverty line. In addition, over 4000 rural schools are reportedly in a state of nutritional emergency further exacerbated by insufficient and inconsistent state aid, unreliable or non-existent infrastructure, and no medical and educational assistance.
Sumando Manos strives to alleviate the crisis by helping in four main spheres: health and hygiene, nutrition, infrastructure, and others. Health and hygiene make up the biggest share of the foundation’s activities (39 percent) and include providing children with pediatric and dental examinations and care. In collaboration with other local non-profits like FANDA, helping children with hearing disabilities, and Camino a la Casita, an educational center, Sumando Manos also delivers educational lectures on health prevention.
With 32 percent, nutrition takes second place. The foundation has established a breakfast program and distributes canned and fresh foods. Next comes infrastructure (22 percent) that encompasses various activities such as digging wells, installing water tanks and electric generators, and constructing buildings. One of the foundation’s latest infrastructure projects was realized in Morillo and Los Blancos in Salta province, Northwest Argentina.
The period between March and December is characterized by severe drought, which causes water shortages within the Wichi community in the province. People must travel between 19 and 92 miles to fetch water from the water treatment plant supplying the vital liquid. Once they reach it, however, they can take up to two to three 34-ounce cans since that is the amount they could transport with their motorcycles or bikes.
Thanks to the 159-gallon water tanks installed by Sumando Manos in their homes, 200 families will have a stable water supply and will not have to embark on the trip to the water treatment plan. The “Others” category accounts for 7 percent of the foundation’s activities. It involves supplying schools with educational materials and tools, furniture, games, toys, and distributing clothes and shoes donated by the organization’s partners.
Sumando Manos uses multiple online crowdfunding platforms such as GlobalGiving, Caring Crowd, and Bright Funds and organizes various fundraising events, including corporate gatherings, sports tournaments, and raffles. Since its inception in 2005, the organization has helped over 12,000 children.
For its relatively short existence, just above 15 years, Sumando Manos has received multiple awards and recognitions. The organization is a two-time winner of the Social Ambassadors Awards for Help Argentina in 2009 and 2011. It has also won 1st place in the 2015 GlobalGiving’s Fail Report Contest, where non-profits share about a new project that did not work out as expected and the lessons learned. In the same year, the Sumando Manos’ president and founding member Guillermo Donaire was featured in Diario las Américas, published in Miami since 1953, one of the oldest Spanish-language newspapers in the US.
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