"Literacy: EMPOWERMENT, One Word at a Time."

In the spring of 2000, the Sorority decided to focus its efforts and funding on literacy. The Sorority advocates literacy as a means of ensuring the empowerment and success of our nation and of the people of its diverse communities. We strive to encourage literacy as an activity that affords limitless possibilities and promotes reading and writing as enjoyable, exciting, and empowering. Our work will be based on the premise that literacy serves to uplift our communities by fostering confidence within our young people, so that they may advance toward their educational, personal, and professional goals. In turn, our children may begin working toward establishing a foundation of success for our communities and our nation as whole.

Each year, the Sorority targets a particular population, defined by age, need, or location in which to focus its literacy efforts. This year, the Hermanas of Sigma Lambda Upsilon will help to promote health literacy and increase awareness in our communities.  Health literacy is defined in Health People 2010, a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as: "The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions". The American Medical Association notes that poor health literacy is "a stronger predictor of a person's health than age, income, employment status, education level, and race.