Project VIDA is a culturally-focused HIV/AIDS prevention and direct services community-based organization located on Chicago’s West Side.  Project VIDA was founded by a consortium of volunteers in 1992 to address the unique needs and concerns of Latino and African American individuals at risk for or currently living with HIV/AIDS.  We began with two co-founders distributing condoms out of a hardware store in Little Village (over 90,000 residents), then grew to have our own space, and now have two sites with dedicated and committed staff, volunteers, contractors, and Board of Directors.  Project VIDA's mission was newly revised in 2010 and is now “to improve quality of life and reduce health disparities in underserved communities by promoting self-empowerment and providing holistic health education and direct services.”

Since our inception, Project VIDA has served more than 173,700 clients and community members, mostly in Chicago’s heavily-populated Latino and African-American neighborhoods.  The community areas in which the majority of our clients primarily reside are the following, in approximate descending order of number served:  South Lawndale/Little Village, North Lawndale, the Villages of Oak Park, Cicero, and Berwyn, Pilsen/Lower West Side, Back of the Yards, Brighton Park, Near West Side, McKinley Park, Humboldt Park, Logan Square, South Chicago, West Town, and Near South Side.

Roughly half of our Direct Services clients are between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four (46%), live at or below the federal poverty level (57%), and are receiving some form of public aid (43%) or are uninsured (42%).  Nearly four fifths of our Direct Services clients are Latino (78%), and roughly half of these speak only Spanish.  One-fifth (20%) of these clients are African American.  Most are male (80%), followed by female (18%), and transgender (2%).