Esperança will now be known as Advance, but the organization will continue to work to improve community health at home and abroad (submitted photo).

Now in its sixth decade, nonprofit organization Esperança will now be known as Advance. The organization says that the name change will better reflect the breadth of their health services and their vision of health equity for everyone as it provides health resources to underserved communities across the globe.

Founded in 1970, Advance aims to re-introduce itself to the world with a new name and mission statement that clearly states their mission today — to not only provide hope for underserved communities, but advance them through tangible, sustainable progress toward optimal health. This includes providing healthy meals, improving access to safer drinking water, teaching sustainable agricultural practices and much more.

When the organization was originally founded, they worked only in Brazil, addressing the specific issue of immunization of childhood diseases that had long been eradicated in the U.S — hence, the name “Esperança” which translates to “hope” in Portuguese. Today, this name and overall branding focuses too narrowly on the nonprofit’s origin story and does not reflect the evolution of the services offered, or the greater overall mission.

Advance better represents the future of the organization as an Arizona-based nonprofit that focuses on strengthening underserved Latino communities in Phoenix and surrounding areas in the Valley, while continuing to improve health in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and Ecuador.

For more information, visit www.advancecommunity.org.