Dianne Ashman is people and places placement director - she works closely with volunteers and local partners, matching individual volunteer skills, experience and goals to specific local project needs. She has many years of experience in education management, planning, training mentoring and monitoring.

Dianne’s first experience with people and places was in skill share volunteer work - in The Gambia and in India - where she worked with local teachers to help develop their own skills and abilities.

Then, in 2011, Dianne proposed a different volunteer role – that of working with local staff in education volunteer projects to build a better picture of the projects’ needs. Gradually this role expanded to encompass all volunteer projects, aiming to ensure that we fully understand the needs, strengths and weaknesses of the projects we work with and that we provide volunteers with the information they need to make meaningful contributions through their volunteer work abroad.

Dianne works closely with Sallie in all other aspects of our work – except the accounts which even a promise of a lifetime's supply of chocolate cannot encourage!

Her least favourite part of her job is waiting at airports.

Sallie Grayson is co-founder and programme director. She works on an ongoing basis with local people to build meaningful volunteer programmes.

Sallie‘s volunteer experience includes work in The Gambia, coincidentally at the same time as Harold was working there on national tourism guidelines (meet Harold below). Their fortunate meeting and subsequent discussions led them to pursue a better way to serve local communities and volunteers.

Sallie ran a niche marketing company for 20 years and has served as a non-executive director and consultant in industries as varied as retail, finance, health and tourism. She has a proven record in direct marketing and business development. She has worked with communities all over the world to help them to build the future they want for themselves.

Sallie’s own experience in volunteer work, as well as the shared experiences of other volunteers and the communities in which they worked, left her frustrated and cynical - but also inspired by the potential benefits of skill share for volunteers and local communities … and determined to do something!

Sallie works with governments, charities (local and international), tour operators and other non-governmental organisations to campaign for and advise on best practice in volunteer travel. She is also responsible for the general management of people and places including marketing, finance and organisational best practice.

 Her least favourite part of her job is doing the accounts!

Mariana Bah works with Sallie on the business management side of people and places, including accounting, marketing, organisational best practice, and on liaison with our local partners.  She has been involved with people and places since the early days, working from 2009-2012 as volunteer coordinator in The Gambia.

She has a degree in responsible tourism and has set up and managed various community tourism initiatives in The Gambia.

Mariama lives in London and is a senior social worker working in the field of child protection.

The most challenging part of her role is fitting all she has to do as a busy working mum into a 24 hour day!

Musufing Whyles works with Dianne to match volunteers and to support them through the preparation and volunteering stage of their placements.

She has over 30 years’ experience of community volunteering in grassroots organisations in the areas of health and wellness education.  She is involved in various initiatives campaigning and promoting cultural heritage through arts and tourism.

Musufing is of Jamaican heritage – until 1997 she lived and worked in the UK when her work in health education through drama took her to The Gambia – she fell in love with the country and now regards it as her home.

She currently works as a radio news reader, alongside her work for people and places.

The most daunting part of her job is learning how to use our admin system!

Harold is Chair of our non-executive advisory committee, the committee that we report to and that keeps us on our toes in being responsible and accountable in all that we do.

He is an Emeritus Professor and Responsible Tourism Director at the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Harold is an acknowledged world leader in responsible and sustainable tourism. He works with communities, governments, international funding agencies, and within the tourism industry to advance responsible tourism.

Until his recent retirement Harold was Professor of Responsible Tourism at Manchester Metropolitan University where he directed the Centre for Responsible Tourism and was founder, in 2002 of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism.

Harold is committed to enabling local communities and economically poor people to conserve their natural and cultural heritage through careful linking with responsible travellers. He firmly believes that economically poor communities and volunteers should be better served than is the case with the majority of existing volunteer recruitment organisations. The least favourite part of his job is not being able to spend enough time with the community projects we work with!

Kate Stefanko

Kate is a co founder of people and places.

With over 25 years’ experience in the travel industry, including the development of cultural immersion tours for specialist UK travel companies, Kate has always placed particular emphasis on matching travellers' cultural experience to the need for rewarding and empowering experiences for their hosts.

Kate holds a firm belief in the inherent ability of individual people to achieve great things through working together.

Without Kate’s passion and commitment to her role as placement director for over 10 years people and places would not have been launched or survived .Though she no longer plays a day-to-day role she serves on the advisory board.

Kerry Kenton-Clarke

Strictly speaking, Kerry is not a people and places volunteer - but he is very much one of the team and the team is not complete without him! From our earliest days Kerry has helped us with our websites and blogs and our administration system - which he and Sallie designed together.

Kerry takes real pains to understand our organisation and what we are trying to achieve - and then he magics everything into a public site with a user-friendly back-end administration system. He has supported and advised us through various updates and explained simply the mysteries of SEO to us - and patiently!

He addresses the inevitable problems that come with the internet world - promptly and professionally

Quite simply we feel our "webbie" Kerry is in our corner and that is so reassuring for a small organisation with limited skills and even less money!.

Kerry's least favourite part of working with us is the 6am on a Sunday call…..and he is still helpful - what a hero!

people & places ... what a team ... people skills, business experience, professional skills, practical experience ... and academic gravitas!

and we all share a passion for the importance of travelling to make a difference.