Semillas de Salud
Health Career Support
The Original Semillas de Salud Program
A health professional recruitment & youth development program
Addressing the critical shortage of primary care providers, as well as community development in rural New Mexico.
Working with other organizations & institutions, Semillas de Salud identifies youth in our communities interested in sciences,
and creates a pipeline of mentorship and support which extends from middle school on through health care profession job placement.
“What is the hope for these rural communities?….. it starts with the kids.”
If you have any questions regarding our organization or the services we provide, we invite you to contact us today.
Health Career Clubs in all our local schools
The crisis in primary care right now is a shortage of providers. The big question is: where will we find clinicians in the future? Our answer is: we will grow our own. In Semillas de Salud, kids get to learn about rural health care first hand. Many of these children were born and raised here. The program gives them a way to learn the integral importance of health care in rural communities – the communities they grew up in. From start to finish, kids who are interested in sciences and kids who are determined to grow into the health profession will have an opportunity to experience it up close.
Free health education in all our local schools
Semillas de Salud is providing free health education to teach our youth that they have choices beyond the daunting health statistics for teen substance abuse, DWI, suicide, unintended pregnancy, obesity, etc. They could choose health!
Our health career clubs have evolved into peer health education programs. Our talented youth are trained to serve as valued members of our health care teams while still in school. They gain experience in health education presentations to their peers on campus, lead community projects for events in suicide prevention, and link their peers to the services we provide in our school-based health centers.
Increasing clinical rotations and positive experiences
We start with middle school kids who express an interest. The middle school kids are mentored by high school kids. The high school kids are mentored by the undergrads, and the undergrads are mentored by medical students and residents. Finally, residents are mentored by professional providers in our clinics. This provides an efficient workforce and instills the “live to serve” mentality required to thrive as a rural and underserved health care professional. We have now provided hundreds of such clinical rotations and have eventually hired 30+ providers to date.
Scholarship fund to support our youth pursuing health professional higher education
Our hope is our youth. Through collaborative efforts we will improve opportunities in home communities and create a healthier normal. This shared vision leads to a promising future reaching beyond improved health statistics to improved social, economic, academic, cultural and spiritual components of health.
A scholarship program has been founded through Semillas de Salud. With the aim of providing much needed assistance to high school students transitioning to university as well as undergraduate and graduate students pursuing health professional education. A real part of rural life is unexpected circumstances acting as barriers for our talented students. This scholarship program wishes to identify those students impacted by such barriers and offer help in overcoming these challenges.