Young People Engaging in Volunteering: Questioning a Generational Trend in an Individualized Society
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
3. Results
3.1. Volunteering As An Escape to Unemployment and Precariousness
- Jack—After college I thought, okay, if I do not get job it is good think about volunteering (FN).
- Javier—I am mechanic but I was unemployed and knowing that it is difficult to stay in my country because of the crisis I decided to come to this experience of a year. (I)
- Lauma—In Latvia I lost my job, I was not officially unemployed but was doing temporary jobs from time to time, nothing permanent. As I had nothing to do, why not? (I)
3.2. Volunteering As An Opportunity for Skills Development and Curriculum Enrichment
- Larissa—I did not want to stay longer to work in the bar. I wanted to do something to improve my skills. At first I was looking for volunteering at schools and so could learn as a teacher, because in Greece I only had three months of practical work as a teacher in graduating and currently there are no job opportunities as a teacher. (I)
- Lauma—We’re here also looking for job opportunities, because here you can take the risk to do what you want to improve your skills and you’re not responsible for anything. You can try, if you have no success it’s bad but life goes on. (I)
- Chiara—As I am a tour guide I mainly wanted to improve my English skills and learn Portuguese, because nowadays it is economically important, for example, for the Brazilian economy. (I)
- Jack—The economic situation is not good, getting a job is difficult. And as I did not want to stay at home to send e-mails waiting for something fall from the sky I thought about the chances I had. Either I am at home doing nothing, that is, looking for a job, or I will do something to have an international experience, to try to learn a new language, and also to work as a team. Other things that you do not learn at school, at university (...). All these possibilities can enhance the likelihood of having employment. So as I wanted to learn I found this opportunity excellent. In addition to learning I could be helpful to others. There are few programs as this one. (I)
3.3. Volunteering As An Opportunity to Travel and Meet People from Other Cultures
- Larissa—I wanted to go abroad to study or to do EVS, as this is an experience that allows you to meet people from different cultures and to work together with them for a year. (I)
- Giulia—I wanted to do an experience abroad for a year. I had just gone abroad for a month on vacation. So I wanted to see how I could work in a place that is not of my origin, to be in relationships with different cultures and different ways of seeing and doing things, and enhance skills, such as learning Portuguese and have the experience of organizing things. (I)
- Chiara—I’m always looking for a way to travel abroad without paying and to know new cultures. And a friend of mine told me that there was the possibility to travel with all expenses paid through volunteering. (I)
3.4. Young People’s Attitudes: Tensions between Cooperation and Competition
- Larissa—I like when we communicate our ideas among us. We are a group project but we work more individually.
- Chiara—I can propose projects in groups, but if I don’t see any enthusiasm I go forward with my individual project.
- Larissa—We are failing as a team. We do not spend time together. We have to talk more…
- Coordinator—You are privileged, you just have to be more like a team, to discuss, to have fun with each other. When I come here the atmosphere is low. I do not see enthusiastic and energetic people. Try to find motivation.
- Lasse—The problem is that people put individual interests first rather than those of the group. Often I do not like being here at the office because I do not like the tension that I feel. It seems that people want to do things alone and want personal achievements. But I think the victory must be collective.
- Jack—If I’m ever hearing “Oh I do not want to do it, I’m tired” ... but then say “let’s go to the party. “I am here not to party but to learn the language and work together with the others.
- Réka —We must learn to be a team. (FN 18 December)
- Lasse—I do not like the way we work in this group. Till January nobody worked together. Everyone worked for themselves. I do not mean that I did the right thing, I tried to work with the others, but at some point I stopped too because you cannot force people to do something they clearly do not want to do. I told them this a couple of times. It seemed that there was a competition between them to see which one was the best worker. It seemed that was to cultivate the individual glory, like, Oh I’ve been so well. I did this, this, this and this. For me it is more important to say: We did this, this, this and this ... for me it is a “we”. It was always like that. It’s much more fun to work with people than working against people. (...) So this group takes me a lot of energy and effort to try to make us into one group because they are still very individualistic in the way they work. (I)
4. Discussion
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Project “Meeting the Community” | Project “For a Better World” | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chiara | Réka | Larissa | Maarit | Lasse | Jack | Ewelina | Lauma | Jelena | Giulia | Javier |
Italy | Hungary | Greece | Finland | Denmark | Slovenia | Poland | Latvia | Serbia | Italy | Spain |
30 | 24 | 23 | 20 | 25 | 28 | 28 | 27 | 29 | 26 | 25 |
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Jardim, C.; Marques da Silva, S. Young People Engaging in Volunteering: Questioning a Generational Trend in an Individualized Society. Societies 2018, 8, 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8010008
Jardim C, Marques da Silva S. Young People Engaging in Volunteering: Questioning a Generational Trend in an Individualized Society. Societies. 2018; 8(1):8. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8010008
Chicago/Turabian StyleJardim, Carolina, and Sofia Marques da Silva. 2018. "Young People Engaging in Volunteering: Questioning a Generational Trend in an Individualized Society" Societies 8, no. 1: 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8010008