SISTERS began in 1990 when two Xicana activists became frustrated with the lack of health education and prevention services for women in their community.  They recognized the staggering economic, cultural, political and social barriers that increased people of colors’ health risks, such as poverty, lack of formal education, unequal family power dynamics, and community stigmas associated with illness. The founders began their work by providing educational materials out of their cars and hosting discussions in their homes.  They focused on providing a safe and supportive environment in which to address sensitive health issues.

For nearly twenty years SISTERS has been building, supporting and sustaining Promotor@ programs with hard-to-reach populations and communities. Until recently, most of that work was done in the Denver metropolitan area. But in 2005 the organization began to define its work in statewide terms. This expansion of services grew out of concerns for the needs of an increasing Latin@ presence in many rural Colorado communities and an accompanying negative sentiment toward Latin@ families, particularly Mexican immigrants. Once SISTERS succeeded in stabilizing the Denver programs with a suitable facility, talented full-time staff, community support, and reliable funding streams (2005-2007), we were ready to begin the launch of satellite programs in areas of the state where Latino families are underserved. We are presently introducing and/or building and maintaining promotora programs in Walsenburg, San Luis, and Fort Morgan, Colorado.

In Denver, SISTERS now offers many of its programs and services at our new building at 2895 West 8^th Avenue. The 2000 census finds our Sun Valley neighborhood to be 52.61% Latino and  71.5% of the neighborhood’s Latino households are living in poverty. This compares to Denver’s poverty rate of 14.29 for all race/ethnicities and 22.47% poverty rate for Latinos citywide. Our 9000 square foot building was purchased in February 2007 with support from a Denver Department of Housing and Neighborhood Development grant. We renovated the upper level of the industrial-style building for multiple combined uses including community meeting/training rooms, administrative offices, program staff open work space, and private counseling and testing rooms. Mexican art adorns the brightly colored interior walls, and our murals project artists and volunteers are busy working on indigenous health messaging designs for the exterior walls. The vision for our building, dubbed Plaza Aztlan, is a cultural health and wellness center for the community.  We moved into the building in late April and find it to be ideally suited to our mission and services.

One of the building’s best features is its lower level with over 3000 square feet of warehouse-like open space. The vision for this area includes the installation of aerobic quality flooring for an exercise area and a small teaching kitchen so that we can fully implement heart health programming on site.  Funding proposals for these improvements has been presented to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) Health Disparities Division and to Caring For Colorado. Applications are under review.