Community Health
Siloam’s community health efforts seek to provide opportunities for immigrants and refugees to take ownership of their health.
Community Health Workers
Siloam’s Community Health program is a unique initiative targeting immigrant and refugee communities in Nashville. Siloam-trained Community Health Workers (CHWs) serve as health ambassadors in their communities to help fellow immigrants navigate health and social service systems, address the root causes of disease, and strengthen social capital. CHWs work with patients in and out of our primary clinic, using culturally-tailored approaches to impact the health of entire communities. In 2022, Siloam Community Health Workers helped more than 550 patients improve their health through one-on-one relationship.
Nashville Neighbors
Siloam Health’s Nashville Neighbors program gives local churches and the broader Nashville community an opportunity to welcome and build relationships with refugees. Through Nashville Neighbors, volunteer teams commit to walk alongside a newly-arrived refugee family for six months, teaching them basic health lessons while also building deeper relationships with these new neighbors from all over the world. In addition to empowering refugees to make a healthy transition to their new home, Nashville Neighbors is a powerful tool to cultivate and mobilize a spirit of hospitality among local churches and the Nashville community. The new friendships created are already opening eyes and hearts and contributing to the flourishing of a whole new Nashville.
Click here to learn more and sign up.
“Nashville Neighbors has given me the courage to step out on faith in areas where I may not have experience and feel out of my comfort zone. When I see the Lord being faithful, I can have the attitude of YES!
– Liz Myers, Nashville Neighbors volunteer
Nashville Neighbors in Action: Liz’s Story
Liz Myers serves as a Nashville Neighbor with her husband and small group from Fellowship Bible Church in Brentwood, TN.
“Serving with Nashville Neighbors has given our small group a unique adventure to connect with a new culture without leaving Nashville and learn that you don’t have to leave home to serve an underserved, unnoticed population and have a multicultural experience,” Liz shared. “It has been a joy to make new friends. Even though we’re from different cultures, we are indeed really similar. The ups and downs of life are quite similar even though we’re different.”
“It’s been meaningful to learn that refugees are indeed our neighbors. This initiative has helped us to be biblical neighbors in our community and to take the call of the ‘Good Samaritan’ and actually walk it out. It’s so easy to isolate ourselves in our community and our relative independence that we forget those in need right next door to us,” she continued. “This has also bonded our small group because we’re pursuing a common goal outside of serving ourselves. It’s amazing how the Lord has revealed different gifts among our group through this process. Everyone has so much to offer, and it has allowed people to utilize their gifts in different ways.”