About

Why We Exist: Bebashi – Transition to Hope was founded in 1985 as a full-service HIV/AIDS organization with special interest in serving low-income people of color with HIV disease. As the second-oldest AIDS service organization in the Philadelphia region, Bebashi – Transition to Hope was the first African-American organization in the United States to address the AIDS crisis. It remains one of Philadelphia's largest community-based minority providers of HIV/AIDS education and services for the urban community, and is a model for the provision of culturally specific education and services for other communities of color, serving more than 20,000 consumers annually.

Bebashi provides a continuum of care (free of charge) involving culturally sensitive and competent community education, HIV, STI, and pregnancy counseling and testing services, and medical case management (for HIV+ individuals). In recent years, Bebashi has begun to recognize the need for services to combat the health disparities that have plagued the underserved minority community of the Greater Philadelphia area (a five-county area), such as breast cancer awareness – linking the medically uninsured and underinsured to resources that provide free or low-cost screenings and diagnostic services. Additionally, to assist those living with HIV and their families to have the proper nutrition necessary to maintain their health, the hunger relief program was established to provide food supplies to these consumers and the general public living below the federal poverty guidelines.

Today, we are a multi-purpose health and social services agency with a special interest in serving people in Philadelphia. Our mission is "To provide culturally sensitive health related information, direct services, education, research, and technical assistance to reduce and eliminate HIV/AIDS and other health disparities within the urban community of Philadelphia and vicinity." We're also expanding to fight other challenges like hunger and breast cancer.

Bebashi has helped more than 600,000 people and their families. We serve the underserved, and give compassionate care to people who need it most.