About the photograph:
This vibrant digital photograph, edited by youth in our Media Arts program, showcases an imaginative painting by elementary-aged members inspired by the folk tale ‘The People Could Fly.’
Dear friend,
The Brotherhood Sister Sol is an organization founded and developed to meet the moment that we are in as a city and as a nation.
Our vision is a grand vision – the kind of expansive thinking and intersectional approach that is needed.
This vision derives from almost thirty years of being unafraid to struggle with the complicated issues of our time that are interwoven with the pervasive inequalities that are as old as this nation. Our vision is one based on almost 30 years of seeking solutions.
We ask you to support our mission and our response in this moment.
- We educate, we organize and we train to respond to pervasive inequality and injustice.
- We seek to challenge inequity and champion opportunity for all.
- We are helping youth develop their minds, bodies and spirits in a healthy manner, ensuring their development into strong and stable adults.
- We help young people to break cycles of poverty, to develop agency, to become change makers.
- We work to realize a more just and equitable future.
BroSis is a formed community. One that helps youth to define an ethical and moral code – and to live up to these ideals. We surround them with support, guidance, education, access, and love.
- US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy has deemed the youth mental health crisis “the defining public health issue of our time,” saying that it threatens “the foundation for health and well-being for millions of our children.”
Through a comprehensive social justice and education curricula, our members learn to be critical thinkers, to understand the world around them, and to be kind and gentle to themselves, while building the kind of empathy and connection with others that will shield them from loneliness. Through events, resources, and on-site clinical therapy, our licensed therapists and wellness staff help normalize therapy and overall wellness as a priority for our youth members. And so, BroSis responds.
- “Loneliness crushes the soul, but researchers are finding it does far more damage than that. It is linked to strokes, heart disease, dementia, inflammation and suicide; it breaks the heart literally as well as figuratively.” (Kristoff, The New York Times).
Each and every day our work counters this culture of isolation. The wraparound services provided for our youth are a collective mission to surround them with love through action – to disarm hopelessness and connect members to a greater purpose for themselves and their communities. In a time of deep disconnection – we establish a formed community based on connection and meaning. And so, BroSis responds.
- “As New York City inches closer to recovering all the jobs it lost during the pandemic, Manhattan marked a far less encouraging milestone. It now has the biggest income gap of any large county in the country. The wealthiest fifth of Manhattanites earned an average household income of $545,549, or more than 53 times as much as the bottom 20 percent, who earned an average of $10,259, according to 2022 census data.” (Chen, The New York Times).
BroSis members learn to be critical thinkers and social justice activists – to hone a moral and ethical code that compels them to use their voice and build confidence that they will persevere beyond institutional and societal barriers of race, class, and gender. They come to understand the root causes of the injustices they face and then work to change these conditions as they call attention to inequity, finding their voices and inspiring others. And so, BroSis responds.
In a time of deep disconnection – BroSis establishes connection.
Our approach is based on common and shared ideals of humanity and interconnectedness – ideals that permeate all that we do at BroSis.
I hope you will support our work in 2023.
All the best,
Khary Lazarre-White
Executive Director & Co-Founder
