2nd Class, 2003-2005
Field Placement: Counterpart International, Guatemala
Grace Jones educated farmers about sustainable agriculture and forest garden methods in six communities of rural Guatemala, where she also helped women’s groups plant a variety of fruits and vegetables and promoted the use of locally available medicinal and edible plants, improving families’ access to nutritious food.
Policy Placement: Counterpart International, Washington, DC
Grace continued her work with Counterpart as a member of their Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture team in Washington, where she helped to incorporate lessons learned from the forest garden project in Guatemala into a manual for future program start-ups, as well as train other Counterpart staff on the methodology.
Pre-Fellowship Education/Experience:
Grace holds an MS in International Agricultural Development and an MS in Agronomy from the University of California, Davis. As a Peace Corps volunteer agriculture extensionist in Honduras, Grace helped farmers increase their yields on hillside plots. She also developed a network of women’s groups engaged in the production of vegetables for household consumption. Grace speaks Spanish fluently.