Community Corner—Entre Hermanos
Date Posted: September 19, 2024
Categories:
by Seattle Human Services on September 3, 2024
Community Corner highlights the work of Seattle Human Services’ community partners in their own words. Our goal is to gather stories and photos that illustrate their amazing work on behalf of the people of Seattle. This post highlights Entre Hermanos.
What is the role your organization fulfills in your community?
Entre Hermanos is a “by and for” community-based organization that offers Latine cultural and health services to the LGBTQ+ community in a space that is affirming, safe, and supportive. We improve health and well-being for the Latine LGBTQ+ community through wraparound support services, legal immigration consultation and representation, support for prevention of HIV and care for those living with HIV, media outreach on Latine and LGBTQ+ issues, education and advocacy for human rights and civic engagement, and community building and cultural celebration.
Every year we reach more than 7,000 people in the greater Seattle community, including 1,000 who receive direct medical and non-medical higher-touch interventions through STD testing, PrEP navigation, and HIV medical case management; and 6,000 through light-touch outreach and education via radio and social media, LGBTQ+, Cultural, and Health fairs, and condom distribution. Our services are free of charge, without regard to immigration status or insurance coverage, and all activities are conducted in Spanish and Central American indigenous languages.
How does your partnership with Seattle Human Services (HSD) assist you in that role?
Entre Hermanos is grateful for a supportive community, talented and committed staff, and the support of health champions like HSD. As an organization, we are dedicated to ensuring that our clients’ holistic and intersecting needs can be met, and HSD has helped us do this through funding our projects like Arts in the Park, Health and Education campaigns, and more. We’ve also benefitted from the partnership through increasing our connections to the City’s leadership, especially through our involvement in LGBTQ+ initiatives.
What is your organization’s origin story?
We were created by a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Latinos/as who were responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Washington state in 1990. Our founders sought to address the need for social, educational, and health support services with programs deeply connected to our language and cultural roots, surrounded by the warmth, love, and care of our LGBTQ+ siblings being affected by HIV/AIDS. While we started as an organization that serves people with HIV, we now attend to the many ways our clients are vulnerable while remaining true to our mission to promote the health and well-being of the Latine LGBTQ+ community. For more than three decades, we have honored that legacy by continuing to raise HIV awareness, provide sexual health education, and basic needs support to our people while providing culturally and linguistically sensitive services for clients who face complex marginalization due to their immigration and documentation status, sexuality, poverty, or gender.
How has your organization grown or developed in recent years?
In our 33rd year of service, Entre Hermanos continues marching into the future, on the road to justice, striving for progress, and expanding our support services to sexually diverse Latinx individuals in Washington. In recent years, we’ve added new programs like housing assistance for clients on PrEP, legal representation focused on transgender asylum seekers, and trans peer navigation. Our programs have had a lot of support within the city of Seattle, and we’re excited to announce that in the next year we are replicating this program model and opening an office in rural Yakima. Many Hispanic/Latinx people live in rural Yakima, but members of the LGBTQ+ community in that area have little access to culturally and linguistically sensitive services that are LGBTQ+ affirming. Since 2019, we have grown from eight staff members to 29 staff members, and there is still a great need to increase our services.
Why is it important for HSD and City of Seattle taxpayers to invest in community-led work?
Being led by members of the immigrant Latine LGBTQ+ community means we have the in-house Spanish-language, cultural competency, and expertise in LGBTQ issues that equips us to meet the overlapping needs of clients who are new immigrants, Spanish-speakers, and individuals who are undocumented, uninsured, and transgender. We have seen many situations where clients come to us and finally feel safe enough to be themselves fully, share their needs and accept help. Having HSD and City of Seattle taxpayers invest in community-led work like this is critical to decreasing communication barriers, providing a sense of safety for marginalized communities, and truly meeting people’s holistic and intersecting needs. Organizations like ours are community assets that create a more vibrant and healthy community for all.
How do your programs and services help to reduce the disparities experienced by people of color living in our region?
There are troubling racial and ethnic disparities in access to healthcare. In our region, Latine have an uninsurance rate three and a half times the average and they are more than twice as likely to not see a doctor because of cost. Language and cultural barriers also affect access to HIV prevention and care with new HIV diagnoses in the King County Latine population disproportionately affecting people born outside of the US. Health inequities are also significant among the LGBTQ+ community. Men who have sex with men accounted for 68 percent of new HIV cases in King County in 2020 and the risk of acquiring HIV is 25 times higher among men who have sex with men than the general population.
Similar disparities exist in legal systems with LGBTQ+ migrants particularly vulnerable to discrimination and violence. We know from our own experience what it is like to navigate foreign health, legal, or social systems with barriers such as language, sexuality, race, gender, and socio-economic and educational attainment. Many of our clients are immigrants with dreams and visions of a stable and safe future. Our wraparound services in housing, immigration law, outreach and navigation services, and support groups help them attain safety during the most critical period in their lives, reducing disparities and contributing to a region where everyone has an opportunity to live in the fullness of community.
Tell us an example of how a City-funded program or service impacted the life of one of your community members?
One of the things we enjoy most is the opportunity to gather our community in open spaces. In past years, Arts in the Park funding has allowed us to host cultural, art, community, and healing gatherings focused on our connection to each other. From hosting a traditional ‘carne asada’ with music and sunshine to hosting Entre Hermanos’ 9th Annual Pride Picnic or a movie screening in the park; we are grateful for the opportunities to be in community unburdened and in celebration during these events.
And while we gather community, we take the opportunity to share our stories of resilience and organizational opportunities. Arts in the Park-funded Entre Hermanos events have served as an introduction to Entre Hermanos for many newcomers to the area. One such story is from a person named Amerik. Amerik attended one of our events and soon after began volunteering with Entre Hermanos. Their passion for culture, trans lives, and community, saw them go from a client/volunteer to a staff member in 2022.
As Amerik continues to grow as a social services professional, helping others navigate systems, they carry forward the legacy of Entre Hermanos, and continue building safety and stability in their own life. It is a beautiful journey to witness and that is the impact we want to achieve.
What motivates your staff or keeps you going?
We are proud of our own collective intersectionality experience, which makes us look for ways to serve those who are excluded in other contexts, and love working within our culture to serve those who have been pushed aside due to language, sexuality, race, or gender. We know how important a sense of safety is to our clients because we’ve faced the same challenges, and every day we strive to cultivate a transformative and gracious space where people can live their most authentic and empowering identities. We are proud of each of our wins and proud to help provide those in our communities with support to enable them to better navigate complex healthcare, housing, and immigration systems on their own terms.