About Us

Founded in 1995, The Brotherhood/Sister Sol (Bro/Sis) provides comprehensive, holistic and long-term support services to youth who range in age from eight to twenty-two. Bro/Sis offers wrap around evidence-based programming. The organization focuses on issues such as leadership development and educational achievement, sexual responsibility, sexism and misogyny, political education and social justice, Pan-African and Latino history, and global awareness. Bro/Sis provides four-six year rites of passage programming, thorough five day a week after school care, school and home counseling, summer camps, job training and employment, college preparation, community organizing training, and international study programs to Africa and Latin America. Bro/Sis publishes assorted curricula and collections of our members’ writings and trains educators from throughout the nation on our approach. Our theory of change is to provide multi-layered support, guidance and love to our membership, to teach them to have self-discipline and form order in their lives, and then offer opportunities and access so that they may develop agency.

The Brotherhood/Sister Sol has earned national recognition for our model, receiving awards that include, Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Network Use Your Life Award, Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World Award, Abyssinian Development Corporation’s Harlem Renaissance Award, Union Square Awards for Grassroots Organizing and Special Achievement, and the inaugural Brown University Alumni Association Young Public Service Award. Our Board of Directors was also recently selected as one the five finalists for the Volunteer Consulting Group’s (VCG) inaugural Brooke V. Mahoney Award for Outstanding Board Leadership.

“The Brotherhood/Sister Sol is using their passion to uplift and inspire a next generation through extraordinary work that creates leaders and a sanctuary for children . . . where their members can develop a higher vision of themselves.”

-Oprah Winfrey

“I believe so deeply in the life-saving work that The Brotherhood/Sister Sol is dedicated to: values and skills building that empower young people and keep them on course; helping young people to see and develop the extraordinary within themselves; ensuring their safe passage to adulthood. It is surely one of the most incredible organizations in the nation. Their work is catalytic! Their leadership, their services and outcomes are without peer. Simply put, The Brotherhood/Sister Sol does the work that few others will or even know how to do….They have answered the call to repair the village, to secure the children. It’s our responsibility to ensure they have all they need to do God’s work.”

-Susan L. Taylor

“I know the work of this organization and see it as providing an invaluable asset to young people of color in New York City. Khary Lazarre-White and Jason Warwin have done an amazing job of assembling a staff and identifying the kinds of support that are needed by the youth with whom they work.”

-Honorable Ruth Messinger

“The Brotherhood/Sister Sol [BHSS] is not just a program or an organization, they are a family and a culture… I know firsthand how the organization changes lives. That is a point I want to make clear…They do not attempt to save lives. They give youth and their families the resources to change and save themselves… BHSS is one of the most proactive organizations I know. They are raising independent individuals who know that they have an entire family behind them. BHSS does not just change an individual life; they create a ripple in the life of every person one of their members encounters.”

-Elizabeth Acevedo, BHSS alumna & George Washington University student

“The Brotherhood/Sister Sol is more than mentoring, it’s a family. Its warmth, care and welcome that hits you the moment you walk through the door. Their curriculum has structured my life. It’s taught me to be more responsible, independent, and knowledgeable. At most times, the staff paid more attention to aiding my education than my teachers did. I honestly don’t know where I would be without them. When I joined I was heading in a downward spiral, but The Brotherhood/Sister Sol directed me to the paths of success. They really changed my life.”

-Anthony Keller, Rites of Passage member

“What brought me to Brotherhood/Sister Sol is that this organization is attempting to find relevant solutions to the desperate situations facing our young people in the community. The services they provide are invaluable. They are a significant island in a vast sea.”

-Danny Glover

Mailing Address

The Brotherhood/Sister Sol
512 West 143rd Street
New York, NY 10031

www.brotherhood-sistersol.org

Please Contact Ariana Aguilar Voices 7
Phone: 212.283.7044
E-mail: fundraising@brotherhood-sistersol.org