An Extraordinary Group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
A select and dedicated set of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers have carried their service beyond their tours, standing with the people of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) to build lasting solutions that address the country’s deepest needs. From founding grassroots nonprofits focused on HIV/AIDS prevention and care to strengthening schools, clinics, and community-based orphan support, their work uplifts families and protects the most vulnerable children. These volunteers partner with local leaders to ensure programs are culturally rooted, sustainable, and responsive to evolving challenges. Their enduring commitment honors the bonds formed in-country and demonstrates how compassionate, collaborative action can transform lives across the Kingdom. Read the stories below about these inspiring and driven RPCVs whose dedication to Swazis and the Kingdom continues to make a meaningful difference.
Young Heroes: Steve Kallaugher and Jacqueline Eisenberg-Nelson
Young Heroes
First conceived of by RPCV Steve Kallaugher in 2005 and proposed to Eswatini’s (formerly Swaziland’s) National Emergency Response Council on HIV and AIDs (NERCHA), Young Heroes was the first organization in Eswatini to directly address the needs of AIDs orphans and vulnerable children on a national basis. It remains the only organization to do so. The non-profit has successfully created a comprehensive set of financial, medical and educational services for those children and their caregivers. Young Heroes has reached over 15,000 children, adolescents, young adults and caregivers with its programs.
- In 2020, Young Heroes became the first Swazi organization named as a prime USAID grant recipient — a $4 million grant for a three-year program beginning in 2021.
- In 2021, Young Heroes transition to direct USAID funding to provide comprehensive HIV prevention for vulnerable children and adolescent girls and young women (AGYW).
- Eswatini’s Young Heroeswas been recognized by the United Nations as a best practice model for supporting orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), focusing on health, education, and economic empowerment. The organization, which began as an initiative against HIV/AIDS, has been recommended to UNICEF’s Global Orphan Alliance as a model for other countries and is known for its direct support through life-support grants, health care, and vocational training.
- In 2024, Young Heroes reached 36,172 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and 45,766 adolescent girls and young women (AGYW).
- In 2025, Young Heroes lost a large portion of its funding when the U.S. eliminated its USAID-funded programs around the world.
Donations can be made to:
Young Heroes Foundation
415 Deerfield Circle
Fort Collins, CO 80524
USA
Current Director:
Jacqueline Eisenberg-Nelson, PCV Swaziland, 2004-2006
Steve Kallaugher
- Peace Corps Volunteer, Health Extension Programs, Swaziland, 2004-2005
- Founder, Young Heroes, Swaziland, 2006
- Employed by NERCHA, Swaziland, 2006-2008
- Established and managed the Young Heroes Foundation, 2008-2020
After working as the Associate Creative Director at the Wall Street Journal for many years, Steve Kallaugher decided to retire and join the Peace Corps. Steve was placed in a small, rural community in Swaziland, which has the highest rate of AIDS on earth. He soon realized how much could be done to improve the quality of life there, especially for children who had been orphaned by AIDS. Steve first served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Kingdom through 2005. He then branched out on his own in partnership with the National Emergency Response Council on HIV and AIDS (NERCHA) to form Young Heroes, a non-profit organization that provides food, shelter, clothing, school tuition and job skills training to youth affected by AIDS. Since 2006, Young Heroes has impacted thousands of Swazi orphans and other AIDS-affected youth with the means to survive as well as tools to ensure a better future. When Steve repatriated back to the U.S. in 2008, he formed the Young Heroes Foundation, the U.S.-based non-profit fund-raising arm of Young Heroes. He served as director of the Young Heroes Foundation until 2020.
Jacqueline Eisenberg-Nelson
- Peace Corps Volunteer, Health Extension Programs, Swaziland, 2004-2006
- Director of the Young Heroes Foundation, 2020 – Present
When Steve Kallaugher stepped down as head of the Young Heroes Foundation in 2020, Jacqueline Eisenberg-Nelson took over as the organization’s new director and has managed the Foundation from her home in Colorado ever since.
Pasture Valley Children’s Home: Gail & Mike Messick
Pasture Valley Children’s Mission
Pasture Valley Farm and Children’s Home is a farm situated close to Nhlangano, Shiselweni Region, in the South of the Kingdom of Eswatini. Our farm consists of a dairy, a plant micropropagation laboratory, a plant nursery and a children’s home for orphaned and vulnerable children plus an education centre, a home-school, pre-school and a girl’s care centre. The farm is home not only to Peter and Michelle McCubbin and their family (farm owner) but to around 60 orphaned & vulnerable children on the Pasture Valley Farm site. The children previously living on the Ekuthuleni Mission site have now moved to the main farm site.
Pasture Valley Children’s Home endeavored to be as sustainable as possible. We have installed solar geysers for hot water and solar panels for electricity. Our water is pumped by a solar pump. We produce biogas and have our own electric vehicle to get around on the site powered by the sun. Our children get fresh milk daily from the dairy farm, as well as fresh vegetables from our garden. Each home has a fruit orchard with a variety of oranges, mulberries, pomegranates, apples and bananas. We also keep chickens on the farm, which provide fresh eggs for the homes.
Pasture Valley is also the base for the office and shop of the Bambanani Project which provides employment and empowerment for volunteer home-based carers working amongst women and men affected by HIV/AIDS in the Shiselweni Region of The Kingdom of Eswatini. We are also home to a Solar Training and Renewable Energy & Entreprenenurship Centre.
Donations can be made to:
Pasture Valley Children’s Mission
P.O. Box 1665
Rolla, Missouri 65402
Gail and Mike Messick
- PCVs in Eswatini, 2010-2014
- Peace Corps Response Volunteer, South Africa, 2015 (Mike)
- PCVs in the Eastern Caribbean,1976-78
The story of Gail & Mike Messick story is a simple one. They arrived in the Kingdom in June of 2010 and were assigned to the Pasture Valley Children’s Home, near Nhlangano. It consisted of twenty AIDs orphans in a private, Christian children’s home started by a couple–she was Swazi, he was South African. This privately run orphanage is on a working rural farm. The primary purpose of the initial owners was to hire the “unhireable”, those with HIV, to give them the dignity of a job. In 2006 they took in the first orphan and the orphanage was created.
Gail & Mike were the first volunteers Pasture Valley had, and they jumped right in. They extended twice. In addition, in 2015 Mike served with Peace Corps Response Team in South Africa while Gail returned to the USA. Starting in 2016, the couple decided to split their time between Ohio and Swaziland and spend 2-4 months yearly at Pasture Valley, working once more as volunteers. They already knew all the kids. Children that were 3 when they arrived are now turning 19/20. The children’s home has grown to over 50 children and they need the help. Gail & Mike were are happy to be back. They cover all their our own costs.
In 2014, after much discussion, Mike was allowed to establish a 501(c)3 in the US to permit individuals to make tax deductible contributions. Pasture Valley is staffed by four volunteers, and thus is run on a relatively modest budget.
Gail & Mike started a school on the Pasture Valley grounds in 2022 with buildings, teachers, a head teacher, curriculum, and the essentials. In January of 2022, they started up STREEC, a college training underserved Swazi youth in the solar technology profession. This college was fully accredited by Eswatini in January of 2025.
Gail’s primary jobs are teaching preschool, tutoring afterschool, holiday programs, cooking meals for visitors, and working with home healthcare providers with income generating projects. Mike’s primary jobs are administration, tutoring afterschool, sorting donations, supporting mission teams, and hosting visitors.
Vusumnotfo: Katherine Gau
Vusumnotfo
Vusumnotfo is a Swazi not-for-profit organization whose formation was authorized by community leaders in northern Eswatini following the 1991/92 drought. These leaders identified “dependency” as the underlying factor limiting sustainable development at community level. They attributed the deep roots of “dependency” to be interwoven issues specific to Eswatini and the region. To reverse this negative cycle of “dependency” in ways relevant to their communities, they formed Vusumnotfo. Accordingly, the organization’s strategy reflects Eswatini’s many proverbs that the betterment of the future is through the child – “Umntfwana ngumliba loya embili.”
The goal of Vusumnotfo is to strengthen skills at family and community level in practices that support the development and learning of young children. Advancing the development and learning of young children in turn builds human capacity. Overtime, building human capacity results in communities that are able and willing to improve the environmental, social and economic challenges of their generation. By so doing “parenting” contributes to the wellbeing of this generation, and nurtures the next generation; hence – Parenting for a Sustainable Future.
Donations can be made to:
Vusumnotfo
P.O. Box 229
Piggs Peak H108
Eswatini (Southern Africa)
Current Director:
Katherine Gau, PCV Swaziland, 1983-1988
Katherine Gau
- Peace Corps Volunteer, Swaziland, 1983-1988
- Director, Vusumnotfo, Swaziland, Mid-1990s-Present
- Affiliated with Global Giving, Eswatini, Present
Katherine Gau began her work in Swaziland in the 1980s when she worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the field of education in the Piggs Peak region of the Kingdom. She extended her assignment with the Peace Corps, eventually working five years in the Kingdom. When Vusumnotfo began as a non-for-profit development organization in the northern region of the Kingdom in the early 1990s, Kathy served the charity, eventually becoming its director not long after its inception.