Erin Villarreal, Outreach Program Coordinator

1. I chose this career path because I wanted to help people. I never expected that I’d be able to help people daily with my line of work. 

2. So my title is Outreach Program Coordinator, one if the biggest pieces of my job is going out and making connections with stakeholders & community partners. In making these connections we make our services more accessible to the community. 

3. My biggest accomplishment here at PV is the amount of personal growth I’ve experienced since starting at PV almost 5 years ago. I’m so incredibly thankful for the maturity & career growth I’ve experienced. 

Abril Santiesteban, Chronic Conditions Care Program Coordinator

1. I have always liked the healthcare field, and especially community health, since it’s the way in which you can impact more people and you can contribute to improving their condition by providing them with health or social resources, education and support in their needs.

2. My role here at Project Vida is to coordinate the Chronic Conditions Care program in which we offer support to people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, STI's and people who require family planning services. Project Vida is the ideal place to support the community because all of us who work here share this mission and work together to achieve it.

3. Being able to touch people's lives by supporting their health conditions is my greatest achievement. Every time patients express their gratitude for having achieved a favorable change in their health, it is the greatest satisfaction I have had in my work.

Vida Talks Season 2 has come to an end. Listen to the complete season and learn from our partners here in El Paso. This season we invited the Texas Tech Department of Psychiatry, UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, El Paso Diabetes Center, Paso del Norte Children’s Development Center, and more. We embarked in coversations that will help you understand better our community and the challenges it has.

‘OK to not be OK’: Therapy on campus helps El Paso students

Vanessa’s first two years of high school passed in a haze.

Some days she attended classes at her high school in East El Paso. Other days she ditched school to smoke or vape cannabis with her friends at a park. Then there were days she would arrive at school, walk straight back home and sleep all day after getting high alone in an empty house.

“There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t get high,” Vanessa said. “It made me forget the reason why I was alone. It was just a way to escape from reality, to dissociate.”

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City Council votes in favor of making Narcan more accessible in El Paso public facilities

City Council unanimously voted on Tuesday to approve a resolution that directs the city manager to implement a number of harm reduction strategies that will help mitigate the opioid crisis in El Paso.

The item, introduced by Mayor Pro Tempore Alexsandra Annello, along with Reps. Chris Canales and Isabel Salcido, also aims to expand access to Naloxone, a medication that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, also known as its brand name Narcan.

“Having Naloxone readily available and accessible across the community is so important. It will save lives,” Canales said.

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Teen pregnancy on decline; new sex ed policy could impede trend

Jacky Ponce of San Elizario was just 17 when she found out she was pregnant with her two daughters.

“When I went to my first (doctor’s) appointment and I found out it was twins, my mind just went crazy,” Ponce told El Paso Matters. “I was like, ‘What am I supposed to do with two kids? I’m so young.’”

Now, the freshly graduated high school senior is doing her best to love and raise her 5-month-old daughters, though she still looks back wishing she knew a little more about sex education and preventing unplanned pregnancies.

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