During a service-learning trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, when she was 18, Jacquelyn Eisenberg (MSW '08) taught a family to brush their teeth for the first time. One of the children was a girl Jacquelyn's age. That experience set Eisenberg on the path of social work.
Since then, she's been a mentor and tutor for at-risk youth in the U.S., worked to raise awareness of AIDS in Africa, taught English in Brazil and worked with the United Nations Population Fund setting up peer education for youth groups in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. And she's just getting started.
"I just fell in love with the work," Eisenberg says.
During her Peace Corps work as an HIV/AIDS health extension worker in Swaziland, a sub-Saharan African country, she realized she needed to continue her education. She had earned a BA from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2002. With programs in both social work and international studies, the University of Denver fit her criteria for graduate schools.
Building grassroots partnerships
At GSSW, Eisenberg's concentration was community practice, focusing on leadership, empowerment, policy, planning and advocacy. She also earned a certificate of global health from the Graduate School of International Studies (now named the Josef Korbel School of International Studies). At her concentration year internship with a nonprofit called "Seeking Common Ground," she helped develop a service-learning program that took 14 Denver high school students to South Africa.
What does the future hold for Eisenberg? She loves being overseas but says there are people in need everywhere. The one thing she knows is she doesn't want to be behind a desk.
"I'd rather be on the ground, in the field getting dirty and developing the interpersonal relationships. I'm more of a grassroots girl, working one-on-one in partnership with people," she says.
[Editor's Note: Jacque reports that she has accepted a position as the Jamaica HIV/AIDS Program Manager for the Clinton Foundation. Congratulations, Jacque!]
