Jake Jenzen ’04 Combines His Education and Dedication to Service in the Peace Corps

Jake Jenzen ’04 says he was always interested in volunteering for the Peace Corps but his experience at Loyola Marymount University prepared him to actually do it.

“LMU taught me how to incorporate social action with moral reflection and intellectual inquiry,” Jenzen said. “Joining the Peace Corps was the next step in living out the responsibility of my Jesuit-Marymount and mechanical engineering education.”

Jenzen was extremely active in LMU’s community service organizations and social justice groups, whether through alternative spring break programs in Honduras and Guatemala, feeding the homeless with Campus Ministry or mentoring at-risk youth at the Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles. Jenzen also was the vice president of the Human Rights Coalition, which organized disaster relief for Tsunami victims, held voter registration drives and pushed to bring fair trade coffee to LMU.

“My undergraduate experiences showed me how to adapt to and respect other cultures,” Jenzen said.

His experiences led Jenzen to join the Peace Corps after graduation. He worked with the Ngobe, an indigenous tribe in western Panama, and Native Future, a nonprofit organization that helps protect indigenous peoples conserve the ecosystems in which they live. Jenzen saw that the most pressing issue for the Ngobe was the lack of proper sanitary conditions. Working together with the community, Jenzen and Native Future built more than 50 latrines, and a new aqueduct branch is currently being built. Ngobe tribal leaders also are being trained to maintain and sustain the land once the Peace Corps and the nonprofit organizations have left.

“A threat to social justice anywhere is a threat to social justice everywhere,” Jenzen said. “My work in Panama awakened me to my purpose of helping people and started me on a life-long path of solidarity.”

Jenzen now can see the positive results of his work. A quarter of the Ngobe families had latrines when Jenzen arrived but now more than half of the families do. Also, there is higher attendance at community meetings, with some tribe members hiking several miles to attend the meetings.

Jenzen plans to extend his original two-year commitment with the Peace Corps until October 2008. He will work with a neighboring indigenous tribe that lacks access to clean water and sanitation and is involved in land dispute issues. After the Peace Corps, Jenzen plans to pursue a degree in international law.

“Jake is a free spirit who is grounded in reality, but most of all, I admire his dedication to others,” said Jodi Finkel, assistant professor of political science. “He inspired many LMU students to be men and women for others, and he inspired me, too.”