Recruitment Team


Role: The recruitment team are responsible for telling the world about our projects! They also have an important role in advising potential volunteers on projects that might suit them. They're always available on the phone.

Ian Birbeck UK: Ian Birbeck
Recruitment Director
Ian is in charge of our Recruitment team. He coordinates the programme of visits, talks and publicity about Teaching & Projects Abroad around the world.


Faye Stickings UK: Faye Stickings
Head of Social Management
Faye joined us after completing three months as a volunteer in Ghana in spring 2005. She co-ordinates and works with our huge network of returned volunteers who help us at various events around the UK. Faye is also responsible for managing and training a team of Social Management staff in our destination countries and deals with new enquiries from potential volunteers.


Robert Kidd UK: Robert Kidd
Programme Advisor
Rob is the latest addition to the Recruitment Team. He is widely travelled and has volunteered in a number of areas, including teaching in Colombia and archaeology in Italy. Rob talks to potential volunteers about our projects and attends events at schools and universities across the UK.


Scott McQuarrie UK: Scott McQuarrie
Programme Advisor
Scott comes from Glasgow, Scotland and joined the UK team in September 2006. Scott volunteered with Teaching & Projects Abroad in Ghana and has also visited projects in Romania and Moldova. He studied Sport at university and now promotes our sport and archaeology projects to potential volunteers.


Rose Yelland UK: Rose Yelland
Recruitment Administrator
Rose provides administrative support to the Recruitment Team. She organises our busy diary of talks, school visits and career fairs, assists with open day logistics and helps to contact volunteers once they've returned from their placements.


Overseas Recruitment


And we have people helping us recruit volunteers from around the world too.

Will Pashley Australia: Will Pashley
Will first joined as a volunteer teacher in Moldova in 1992. Since that eye opening experience he has gone through a variety of jobs and travels and now runs the Australia office from Adelaide. He is a regular sportsman who is frequently found with a cricket bat in his hand.


Robert Levine Canada: Robert Levine
Rob joined Projects Abroad in 2005, as one of the first volunteers on the then-unheard-of volunteer Drama programme in Romania. As an experienced stage director, Rob was an ideal volunteer and has since taken responsibility for guiding that project to its fruition. Since then, he's taken over running our new office in Toronto. In his free time, Rob enjoys playing hockey, speaking French and eating at Tim Horton's. Which makes sense, since he is Canadian.


Karen Panum Thisted Denmark: Karen Panum Thisted
Karen is currently studying for a Bachelor in Business, Language and Culture from Copenhagen Business School. She volunteered in 2004 with Projects Abroad on both the Conservation Project in Mexico and the Conservation Project in Peru.


Frank Seidel France: Frank Seidel
Frank heads our recruitment office in France. He has 15 years of volunteering experience and has edited a guidebook on conservation placements since 1991. A native German, Frank has now settled in Grenoble where he enjoys hiking and ski-touring in the French Alps.


Michael Harms Germany: Michael Harms
Michael has been working for Teaching & Projects Abroad in Germany since 2003. He has recenty visited our projects in Ghana and China. Michael studied German literature and spends most of his free time reading fiction and playing football in a semi-professional team.


Laurens Vos Holland: Laurens Vos
Laurens coordinates our recruitment in the Netherlands . He originally joined Teaching & Projects Abroad as a volunteer in South Africa . In his spare time Laurens enjoys photography. He also loves spending time with his newly born daughter Philien.


Simona Eco Italy: Simona Eco
Simona has volunteering and working experience in different countries of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. She is now back in Italy where she coordinates with Serena our new recruitment office, opened on August 2007 in the beautiful city of Naples.


Serena Messina Italy: Serena Messina
Serena is an expert in gender studies. She has many years of volunteering and professional experience with several associations and NGOs in Africa and Latin America. After visiting our projects in Costa Rica, Serena is now responsible for the new Italian Projects Abroad office together with Simona.


Tom Pastorius USA: Tom Pastorius
Tom runs Projects Abroad Inc in New York, our exclusive outlet in the USA and Canada. Tom graduated from Princeton University and he has visited a number of our destinations - he's always keen to get out and see another part of the world. Tom enjoys running and the outdoor life.


Will Harper USA: Will Harper
Programme Advisor
Will was a volunteer back in the summer of 2003, when he set up a program that takes orphans to important historical sites throughout Romania. He has also spent a summer in the middle east researching his senior thesis and just finished his B.A. in Art History from Yale University. Will was a rugby player in college and used to work at an airport refueling planes in his free time.


Jessye Crowe-Rothstein USA: Jessye Crowe-Rothstein
Programme Advisor
Jessye is the newest member of the Projects Abroad team in the USA. She has travelled extensively over the years and spent two years of college at a school in southern Switzerland, where she participated in many course-related trips. Jessye's international volunteer experience includes working with street children in Ecuador and building homes in Costa Rica.