CALL US: +1.573.201.4832Orphanage Support Financial Director: Mike Messick
Michael "Mike" Messick is a Christian man who worked 30 years for IBM before selling his home and moving to Nhlangano, Swaziland as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2010. He and his wife Gail were in the Peace Corps before their careers, and returned to it after retirement. At Pasture Valley Children’s Home in Nhlangango, they worked hands-on with orphans running an education center tutoring program from preschool to high school to ensure those children succeed in school, and ran the Bambanani Project. Gail taught craft workshops to the women in the Shiselweni region and some women walked 10 miles to get to her classes because she taught them how to make income to feed their children. Gail also traveled to homesteads in the middle of nowhere and taught the local women how to sew on sewing machines with crank handles in stick and mud huts with no electricity. She showed them what to make, gave them a quantity she would purchase, then returned on a predetermined day to inspect and purchase the crafts and bring more supplies. This involved walking long distances down dirt roads, over hill and dale, carrying raw materials in and bringing finished products out. The Messick's energy and love for the Swazi people is extraordinary, and they left leaving their mark on the country with their efforts. They now continue to work in Africa, return to Swaziland periodically for boots-on-the-ground efforts, and tirelessly market the Swazi Bambanani goods in the USA to benefit the women in Swaziland.