VGCC Graduate Hopes To Help Save Rain Forests Through Peace Corps

When he was 9 years old, Jeff Rose heard a couple from his church talk about their experiences while in Africa.

“They were amazing stories, and I have made it my lifelong goal to go to a small village in Africa and try to help the people,” said the Oxford native and Vance-Granville Community College graduate. He leaves Oct. 1 to begin what he hopes to be a 27-month adventure with the Peace Corps, serving in Africa.

Jeff Rose is the son of Jerry Rose, a financial aid officer at Vance-Granville. Following graduation from J.F. Webb High School in 1996, Jeff entered VGCC and completed the College Transfer program in 1998. He took his credits from VGCC to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and earned a degree in environmental studies in May 2000.

“I’m grateful Vance-Granville was there,” Rose said. “It helped prepare me for the next step in my education and life. I found the instruction was more personal at Vance-Granville than later in Wilmington, and the VGCC teachers tried to stretch our limits.”

Upon graduation from UNC-W, Jeff Rose had not forgotten his goal of serving in Africa, and he looked to Peace Corps as a means of achieving his dream. Usually the application process is quite lengthy, but he applied through the Internet, which speeded up the process quite a bit, he said.

The Peace Corps lets applicants name three continents on they would prefer to serve, and Rose made Africa his top choice. He was informed he has been chosen to serve in Guinea, a nation near the Equator on the southwest coast of Africa, which gained independence from France in 1993.

Rose will go to Philadelphia for a two-day orientation into Peace Corps, then he will fly to Conakry, Guinea, for three months of language and technical training. He has studied French three years, which probably was a factor in being sent to Guinea, but he will also be schooled in three local African languages.

After this period, the Peace Corps will decide where Rose is best suited to serve in Guinea for two years. He is expecting to be assigned in agro-forestry, sort of like the Extension Service agents with which we are familiar in this area. Through this job, he will assist farmers grow and sustain crops without destroying the rain forests.

“This work will be like an extension of my studies at UNC-Wilmington, where I learned to minimize natural resource waste,” Rose said. During his senior year at UNC-W, Jeff conducted an environmental audit of the university, studying what the school was using and making recommendations on how to conserve and minimize waste. This, too, may have helped in his selection for Peace Corps and assignment to Guinea.

After his Peace Corps service, Jeff Rose thinks he may want to remain in the governmental sector, in the environmental realm, perhaps working as an environmental minister for the United Nations. Doing this, he would want to stay in Africa, a continent with “an appealing history that intrigues me,” he said.

How does Jeff’s family look upon his going to Africa for a minimum of two years? They are happy that he’s found something that is so appealing to him but sad that it is so far from home. Jeff says their reaction is “kind of a loving apprehension.”

FOND FAREWELL Jeff Rose of Oxford makes a visit to Vance-Granville Community College, from which he graduated in 1998, before leaving Oct. 1 for the Peace Corps and a two-year assignment in Africa.