“Differences in health status among distinct segments of the population including differences that occur by gender, race or ethnicity, education or income, disability, or living in various geographic localities."

The North Carolina 2010 Health
Objectives adapted from Healthy People 2010

Eliminating health disparities in our community is important for each of us. It can touch any of us or someone we care about. The YWCA hopes that you will join us in forming a collective community voice to address issues related to health disparities and begin the process of heightening awareness and effecting change.

Preventative  Health

Sister, Speak

At the start of the millennium, we were faced with research that showed that while black women were diagnosed with breast cancer less frequently than their Caucasian counterparts, their rate of mortality was much higher only because black women lack the awareness and access to seek preventative screenings and treatment. To the YWCA, this is simply unacceptable. The way we see it, no woman should die from breast cancer because they couldn’t afford a mammogram or because they didn’t know that it could save their life.

In 2000, we were pleased to introduce Sister, Speak,! a breast health education outreach project for women of color. Sister, Speak challenges women all over the community to break the code of silence and start telling one another about mammograms and breast self-exams. The program provides free mammograms to women with little or no health insurance.

We know we can save the lives of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. We just need to get the word out. We’ve touched many lives but our work is not done and we need help to save more of our sisters’ lives.

The Annual Sister Stroll is held the first Saturday in June at Kennedy Middle School.

To view the Sister Speak! PowerPoint presentation, click here.

For More Information:

Jewel Mitchell

Sister Speak Program Coordinator

jewelm@ywcaws.org

336.722.5138 ext. 232