The year 2011 was particularly difficult for Manizales. Three avalanches destroyed part of the city’s water and gas pipes between October 17 and 19, leaving its 400,000 residents without these services for 17 days. During the tests to open the admission registers of the sewage treatment plants, a series of leaks, added to the winter of those months, caused a collapse in the Cervantes neighborhood, the following November 4, which cost the lives of 48 people. “We had very difficult weeks, in the middle of a crisis without a government. Businesses were leaving, bad news flooded the press, there were fights in the streets… we lived through very dark times,” remembers Pablo Jaramillo Villegas, then director of rural development for the Departmental Committee of Coffee Producers.
Tired of this present, Ana María González, director of the Luker Foundation, and he led several meetings with the City Hall, universities, businessmen and banks to transform the reality. During one of these sessions, they concluded that the first problem to be solved was economic. Mauricio Rodríguez Múnera, then advisor to President Juan Manuel Santos, recommended that they consult Babson College, an American educational institution with expertise in entrepreneurship and international business. “We consolidated an alliance and formed a common fund together. We formed a delegation and we went to the United States to bring the experts,” explains Jaramillo.
Once there, they realized that connecting Babson was not easy, because its advice was expensive and in high demand, and they had to enroll in a five-day course. They were greeted, not without some skepticism, by Daniel Isenberg, an American professor of business practice, and Vincent Onyemah, a good-natured Nigerian who was an associate professor of sales and marketing. marketing. The Manizalite delegation presented their ideas and invited their teachers to the capital of Caldense. “We didn’t even know where Colombia was. About Manizales, I had only heard that their team beat Boca Juniors in the Copa Libertadores final in 2004,” Onyemah recalled.
“It wasn’t easy to convince them, we didn’t get off to a good start. When we went to show them on the map where the city was, it didn’t appear! Plus, we asked them the price of the service and they gave us a very high rate, as if they thought that, because they charged too much, we would say no. And we said yes!”, explains Jaramillo.
Already in the land of coffee, at the end of 2012, Isenberg and Onyemah developed their commercial growth methodology. Without allowing anyone from the alliance to intervene in the election of the first 12 companies, the consultants presented the winners of Manizales Más, the city’s new commitment to business growth. “We imagined that they were going to select very innovative ideas, from very creative guys. What a great disappointment and concern when, of the 400 registered, they selected the municipal bakery, the local carpentry and an entrepreneur who made empanadas. We told them: ‘These proposals are very traditional, we don’t like them,’ says Jaramillo.
–We will start with Emma Mesa, a maker of machines for making empanadas: Maquiempanadas –announced Onyemah, in the meeting room of the Chamber and Commerce.
-That! – Several people present express themselves, annoyed.
–Maquiempanadas? No, well, how original – says Jaramillo.
In the midst of this uncertain panorama, Jaramillo assumed leadership of the Luker Foundation, among others, thanks to his extensive experience in implementing rural educational projects, while Marcela Escobar became director of Manizales Más. “This first cohort was crazy. At the beginning, we didn’t believe it, we had invested a lot of money, convinced and brought together a lot of people. Everyone’s future was at stake,” explains Escobar.
About halfway through 2014, Babson College reported first-year results that were astonishing to say the least. All companies increased their sales by 35% on average, generating more than 200 jobs and some even exporting. “What we did, beyond training them in finance and marketing, was to change their mentality,” explains Onyemah.
Maquiempanadas not only grew in the first two years, but was already shipping products to four countries in Europe and Africa. “I was on the verge of closing, debt was consuming me, and the program saved us,” recalls Emma Mesa, founder of a company that now sells empanada-making machines in more than 30 countries.
The plan was a success. Since then, Manizales Más has promoted 188 entrepreneurs, created 4,255 jobs in the region, generated exports to 27 countries and sales of more than 500,000 million pesos, with an average annual growth of 35%.
Education to consolidate inheritance
“We were solving the problem of the economy and industries came to us for help because the workers they wanted to hire barely had a high school diploma,” Jaramillo says. It is with this reality in mind that the Luker Foundation has promoted “The U in your school”, an initiative that promotes agreements with the main universities and technical institutions of Manizales to teach technical programs in the last two years of public secondary education. Since its creation in 2014, it has benefited a total of 12,000 young people.
But children’s learning needed to be improved. “Taking into account the experience of Manizales Más, we again went around the world to look for teaching formats in primary school, to enhance what we were doing with university students. We offered it in three areas: socio-emotional skills, reading and mathematics,” explains Santiago Isaza, director of education at the Luker Foundation.
The research to build the first model was not so extensive, since the Escuela Nueva had already been invented in Colombia, a model that allowed the creation of the “Active School”, a method adapted by the Luker Foundation in which children have more dynamic participation and permanent dialogue with teachers. This program allowed the city to improve its performance in 12 of the 15 socio-emotional skills assessed by the OECD and to reduce school dropouts from 8.5% in 2002 to 3.4% in 2023.
“For the second model, we found a very good method in Cuba, which we adapted and called ‘Let’s all learn to read’. Its secret lies in measurement,” explains Isaza. Since its implementation in 2024, 85% of fifth graders have achieved fluent reading, up from just 38% in 2018. As a result of this work, the organization received the Global Education Innovation Summit Award, known as the Nobel Prize in Education.
The last part, “Let’s learn mathematics”, began in 2021 and is in the testing phase. It is an adaptation of the format used in Quebec, Canada, which seeks to teach arithmetic through dynamics and games, in an experience that leads the learner to understand abstract numerical concepts, while strengthening their connection with the environment. “We hope to complete this phase in 2025 to implement it in all public schools in the city,” says Isaza, who summarizes that in 11 years of educational programs, they have impacted the lives of 23,000 students.
Efforts led by the Luker Foundation, along with others promoted by local governments, have transformed the city. “For all these years, we have worked with red, green, blue, center-left and right-wing mayors for the benefit of all,” Jaramillo jokes. Everything that has been achieved allows us to understand why UN Habitat Latam recognized, last August, Manizales as the best residential area in Latin America, for its planning in infrastructure construction, education and innovation.
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