These Memoirs are not a collection of what was said; they are a blueprint of what will be built. They are not pages of reflection; they are chapters of continuity. They are not simply the story of Manos Visibles; they are a living record of the women whose power, vision, courage, innovation, and wisdom are shaping a new global architecture of justice and possibility.
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
PREFACE
OUR GLOBAL CELEBRATION: VISIBLE HANDS ....................................................................
CHAPTER 1
ARE THERE BLACK WOMEN IN THE FUTURE? THE ANCESTORS OF THE FUTURE ..............
CHAPTER 2
WE NEED US .....................................................................................................................
CHAPTER 3
NARRATIVES OF THE FUTURE: THE VANGUARD AGAINST BACKWARDNESS – BUILDING
THE “NEW NEW” AND MATERIALIZING THE IMPOSSIBLE ...................................................
Preface: Our Global Celebration
Fifteen years ago, Manos Visibles was born from a conviction: that Colombia’s transformation would require shifting power, centering generational diversity, and building infrastructures that could hold the dreams and leadership of its most excluded communities. Today, we celebrate that conviction not as a memory, but as an evolving commitment. We have seen Afro-Colombian and Indigenous leaders rise to roles in government, international agencies, and creative industries, shaping the narrative of what is possible in a country that has too often asked them to remain invisible. We have witnessed a network of over 27,000 leaders and 500 organizations across Colombia, 70% of them women, take the reins of change within their communities and beyond.
Our commitment did not stop at borders. Through AFROINNOVA, we have connected with over 50 leaders across 11 countries in the African Diaspora, weaving alliances, building agendas, and amplifying collective influence to ensure that racial equity is not a local aspiration but a global mandate.
Our participation in the Skoll Forum 2025 marks a profound moment in this journey. It is a celebration of fifteen years of building not only programs but ecosystems of transformation. It is an affirmation that networks of changemakers can, and do, alter the course of histories. It
is a space where we share our achievements while listening and learning, aligning ourselves with those who believe that systems change is not a slogan but a responsibility.
In Oxford, we did not come to simply share what has been done; we came to lay foundations for what comes next. We came to ensure that racial equity, led by women of African descent in Colombia and across the globe, becomes an unshakable pillar of the futures we are designing. We came to test ideas, refine visions, and strengthen the alliances necessary to move from prototypes to lasting structures of justice.
To the Skoll Forum, we extend our gratitude for believing in Manos Visibles and in the power of networks to transform societies. Thank you for providing a space where our voices were not just heard but valued, where our experiences were not peripheral but central, and where our vision for a world rooted in equity and dignity found resonance among those committed to building it alongside us.
May these momoirs be both a record of what we accomplished together and a reminder that the most important chapters remain unwritten, waiting for the hands, visible hands, ready to shape them.
Chapter 1:
Are There Black Women in the Future? The Ancestors of the Future
A Circle in Motion
Adriana Barbosa was the first to speak, grounding the room data: in São Paulo, Feira Preta has moved beyond festiv become economic infrastructure for Black entrepren proving that markets built by and for Black communities ar fringe experiments but essential engines of growth.
“We are not guests in the economy,” she noted, “we are bu it.”
In April at Saïd Business School, a group of Black women convened, not to reflect, but to design the architecture of futures rooted in actionable strategy. This was not an exercise in symbolism; it was a gathering of executives, creators, and disruptors from Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Spain, each bringing rigor, precision, and lineage.
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf responded with the urgency of narr sovereignty. At Cassava Republic, she is rewriting the pipeli African literature, ensuring that African stories are ed published, and distributed under African leadership.
“Stories are not soft power,” she said. “They are governanc
Dorcas Owinoh added a layer from the tech frontlines. In K at LakeHub, and across the African diaspora in cities Medellín, her work bridges young coders with g opportunities, dismantling the narrative of dependency thr employability and skills sovereignty.
“Access to technology is access to futures,” she said simpl
In this circle, each voice sharpened the conversation.
When Erika Palacios and Milady Garcés entered the conversation, they shifted the lens to the territories often overlooked in global forums. They spoke of the Colombian Pacific and its diaspora in Medellín, of the women navigating systemic exclusions while creating pathways to employment and enterprise. For them, the conversation around “empowerment” is incomplete without income, skills, and local economies that dignify Black women’s lives. Their interventions were reminders that transformation is measured not in hashtags, but in how many women can sustain their households, educate their children, and grow businesses without leaving their communities behind.
Viviane Ferreira and Tatiana Carvalho Costa, both filmmakers and strategists from Brazil, emphasized that while capital and technology are critical, imagination is also infrastructure. They spoke of how cinema and audiovisual narratives redefine possibilities in places where policy often fails to reach.
Susana Edjang, weaving together her experiences from the UN to CAF, stressed that global development conversations often exclude the voices that hold practical knowledge about what works. She reminded the group that systemic change requires alliances across sectors without diluting agendas, that care economies are as critical as financial strategies.
Graciela Selaimen echoed these points, adding that philanthropy, when aligned with social movements, can amplify scale without imposing agendas. Her work with Instituto Toriba and as a board member of Manos Visibles is rooted in leveraging funding as a tool for structural shifts rather than temporary relief.
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In the days that followed, these dialogues would echo through Skoll Forum corridors, in side conversations over tea and at panels challenging conventional philanthropic approaches. Their presence was not a celebration of diversity; it was a reminder of accountability—to ensure that Black women are not only in the future but are authors, architects, and governors of it.
This is not a chapter about possibility; it is a chapter about agency.
Because the real question is no longer “Are there Black women in the future?” but:
“Who holds the power to design that future, and are we ready to follow the leadership of Black women who have been building it all along?”
Chapter 2:
We Need Us
They gathered early, in a room where the light moved carefully across their faces, where silence felt like a kind of reverence. It was not silence of absence, but the kind that comes before naming, before remembering, before deciding. They came as leaders, but that morning, they were allowed to arrive as themselves. They brought photographs: small feet in school shoes too big, smiles with missing teeth, hands holding certificates, eyes looking into horizons only they could see. They brought the moments when a door opened, when they spoke up, when they decided that fear would not outrun them.
They spoke of the power of stories, how a book is not merely a container of words but a vessel of futures, how reclaiming narrative is reclaiming authority, how stories can anchor movements when policies lag behind.
They spoke of technology, of the precise work of ensuring it becomes a tool for sovereignty rather than dependency, of how teaching others to build, code, and create is also teaching them to claim space without apology.
They spoke of building structures where Black women are not included as an afterthought, but positioned as essential architects of economies that reflect justice. They shared stories of collective action, of transforming gatherings into organized markets, of shifting informal ingenuity into recognized industries. They spoke of the relentless work of proving that value is not granted; it is declared and demonstrated.
They spoke of development, and how it can be practiced without replicating harm, how care and data are twin infrastructures of justice when applied with rigor and honesty. They spoke of education not as a promise deferred, but as a promise delivered, and of the importance of creating programs that allow the young to move from survival to leadership without losing their sense of self.
They spoke of numbers, budgets, and impact metrics, and of the invisible work that sustains these structures: the emotional labor, the private negotiations, the discipline it takes to lead without becoming hardened.
They spoke of exhaustion that clings even in moments of triumph, of the tension between scale and rest, of the deep contradiction of being called to so many rooms while longing to be fully present in their own lives.
They laughed quietly at memoirs of dancing together, of small celebrations after hard-won victories, of songs hummed after signing agreements, of the humor found in navigating spaces that were never designed for them.
They wept, softly, for the weight that leadership sometimes brings, for the battles fought in silence, for the moments when carrying others meant forgetting to carry themselves.
They spoke of becoming ancestors of the future, not as abstraction, but as daily practice. Of living with integrity, so that the structures they build today do not ask the next generation to sacrifice themselves in the name of progress.
And then, they paused.
Hands over hearts, eyes closed, they took a breath that was shared, a moment that felt like an agreement unspoken:
We need us.
They said it softly, then again, louder, until it was no longer a wish but a promise. It was not sentimentality; it was strategy.
Because movements are only sustainable when leaders are, too.
Because the future cannot be designed without first asking who we will be within it.
Because to become ancestors of the future, one must lead with intention in the present. In the days that followed, they would move into the rhythm of Skoll: panels, sessions, corridor conversations, frameworks, and funding discussions. They would speak of Black economies, narrative sovereignty, employability as justice, data as care, and scale as survival.
They would sit at tables where decisions are made, but the memory of that morning would remain, reminding them of why they are here, of who they are beyond titles, of what truly matters. They would carry the quiet power of that pause, the breath, the words:
We need us.
And so it became clear: Black women are not asking for space in the future.
They are claiming it, defining it, designing it.
With the clarity of those who understand that the only way to shape tomorrow is to live today with purpose.
Chapter 3:
Narratives of the Future: The Vanguard Against Backwardness
Building the "New New" and Materializing the Impossible
It was a panel, but not the kind that dissolves into polite applause and networking cards left on empty coffee cups.
This was a room of women who understand that narratives are not decorations for change; they are the infrastructure of transformation.
Hosted by Manos Visibles and Instituto Toriba, and guided with measured intention by Graciela Selaimen, the conversation unfolded under the provocation: How do we build the “New New” and materialize the impossible?
Viviane Ferreira began with precision. She spoke of the quiet revolution of law, policy, and collective organizing that allows Black filmmakers to enter an industry designed to keep them at its margins.
“We
are not asking to join the industry as it is” she said.
We are reconfiguring the industry so the next generation will enter a system that sees them as essential, not exceptional.”
She described how cinema is not just storytelling; it is a site of power, economy, and imagination. Each film, each distribution platform, each training lab becomes a building block in an infrastructure designed to sustain Black sovereignty in cultural production.
Tatiana Carvalho Costa then invited the room to pause on the notion of time.
“ We must inhabit the curves of time” she offered, gently but firmly.
She reminded us that linear progress often carries the violence of erasure. Instead, building radical futures requires learning from Sankofa—reaching back while moving forward, refusing to abandon memory while designing tomorrow.
Tatiana’s slide read Nó da Sabedoria: wisdom, ingenuity, intelligence, patience. She explained these are not aspirations, but strategic postures in a world that demands urgency without reflection from women of color.
She connected imagination to practicality, explaining how policy can embed Black narratives in education systems, how the training of Black creators must happen alongside the creation of funding and distribution infrastructures, ensuring that imagination does not remain abstract but is materialized into systemic change.
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf held the room in quiet tension as she told the story of Yetunde, a young Black publisher who understands books as sacred technologies, carriers of spirit and intellect.
“
“ Civilizations are not built on timidity. They are built on the excesses of imagination.”
She explained that the pyramids are imagination in excess, that the Taj Mahal is friendship in excess, and that to build Black futures we must embrace the discipline of thinking in centuries, not election cycles.
If we do not build today, the archive of the future will remain empty.”
Bibi spoke of the power of publishing to birth a thousand writers and the necessity of aligning capital with the patient, quiet work of narrative sovereignty. Stories, she insisted, are not simply entertainment. They are blueprints for futures that refuse the logic of erasure.
Throughout the dialogue, Graciela ensured the conversation did not float into abstraction. She asked:
What does it mean to build ecosystems rather than moments? How do we ensure that what we create outlasts us?
The panelists agreed: imagination must be matched with strategy. Narrative must be backed by policy. Collective dreams must be grounded in collective action.
Paula Moreno entered the conversation, not to summarize, but to remind:
“We are not merely telling stories. We are practicing sovereignty.”
She spoke of the collaborations between Manos Visibles and Instituto Toriba, not as projects for visibility, but as movements designed to build cross-continental alliances, to create leaders who see themselves as part of a collective architecture for change.
“
Sometimes, the most radical act is to recognize that we have time. We can build with the patience of those who know the work will outlive us.”
A participant asked,
“Why is storytelling critical?”
Bibi answered with the precision of someone who has tested this truth:
“
Because stories travel where policies cannot. Because stories prepare the spirit to fight for the world it deserves. Because without stories, there is no collective vision powerful enough to defeat the stories of our erasure.”
They closed without fanfare, without applause, just the quiet acknowledgment of those who know:
Narratives are not a supplement to change; they are the vanguard against backwardness. They are how we build the “New New.” They are how we materialize the impossible.
What Remains
They left the room with commitments:
To build infrastructures of imagination.
To align capital with collective vision.
To scale without sacrificing integrity.
To lead without abandoning patience.
The panel did not end when the room emptied; it scattered seeds across projects, institutions, and future decisions. It reminded each participant:
We are not here to fit into existing systems. We are here to build systems worthy of us.
“
We are not building for tomorrow alone. We are building for 500 years, and we have time.”
YOU AND I
You and I
We are the keepers of dreams
We mould them into light beams
And weave them into life’s seams
And by the hands of the infinite we hear the cries of the rest
Weighed down by their intelligence submitting to this test
