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When Osvaldo Caban, 19, completes the H-CAP program this month, he’ll not only have valuable work experience from Brookside Community Health Center, he’ll also have authored a book about health.
The Health Careers Ambassador Project, or H-CAP, is a new program run by the Hyde Square Task Force to expose 14- to 21-year-olds to the array of opportunities available in health care. Brookside and Southern Jamaica Plain Community Health Center are among four community health centers taking interns from the program, which began in November.
In addition to their internships, H-CAP participants meet regularly to discuss health issues including domestic violence, diabetes, asthma, mental health and cancer. Turning those discussions into a book to be published in June for teens everywhere was one of the program’s learning experiences. “Each of us did a section and got information that people should know,” said Caban, a junior at English High School and Dorchester resident, who researched and wrote the book’s mental health chapter. “In mental health, stress is one of the big things for teens because it can lead to depression.”
At Brookside, Caban and fellow H-CAP intern Christian Pimentel split their time between administrative responsibilities and working with children in a fitness program supervised by Oscar Ponce, Urban Youth Sports Program coordinator, who also supervises and mentors the interns at Brookside.
“I can tell Osvaldo has learned a lot here,” Ponce said. “The program focused on getting the participants to see different avenues of health care careers, like mental health counseling, administrative positions and work like mine in the Urban Youth Sports Program.”
Supervising activities like jump roping and basketball for the eight- to 12-year-old children in the Urban Youth Sports Program was one of Caban’s favorite experiences. “The kids really look up to the H-CAP members,” Ponce said.