Elizabeth Rivera Elizabeth Rivera first came to HPP with her sister who needed help with housing. When Elizabeth learned about the CHW training program, she saw that as an opportunity to make some changes in her own life. Elizabeth was accepted into the internship in June 2006. She felt like her English skills were not good enough and at first she felt very shy. But whenever her supervisor, Inessa Colon, asked her to do something, she said, “Yes.” She would perform an intake with a new client, clean up the file room, answer the phones, whatever had to be done. Elizabeth has many passionate interests. She is a certified doula and might someday become a midwife. She also thinks about becoming a social worker because she has seen how social workers help people to change their lives for the better. If she returns to Guatemala, she would like to create an orphanage for all the little children who are begging in the streets.

Currently Elizabeth is a health educator with HPP’s CenteringPregnancy project, a collaboration with midwives from San Francisco General Hospital. There are six groups of women. Each group is composed of Latina women who are due to give birth at about the same time. They receive their prenatal care in the group. Many times they want to talk to Elizabeth about problems with their pregnancies. Sometimes they have other problems such as worries about possibly getting evicted or they want Elizabeth to call their husbands to talk to them about being at the birth of the baby. Elizabeth remembers when she was afraid to speak up and provides support and encouragement for the women.