Empowering Asian Youth through Volunteering

Examples of Theory into Practice

Elaine Suk Ching Liu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138106444
• eBook ISBN: 9781351589581
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book describes the origin, development and current state of volunteerism in Asia and Hong Kong. It also presents a field-tested model of empowering through volunteerism (namely, the CYEP at City University), that involves youth, governmental and non-governmental agencies and their clients in a rapidly changing society. Volunteerism is then described as a "win-win" situation for all stakeholders/actors. Volunteerism converges the needs, the struggles, the personal motives and the aspirations of the volunteers, together with the dreams and the difficulties of the clients, the expertise of the professionals and the (lack of) resources of the agencies, the new values emerging in society, the effects of globalization and the new policies. This book presents actual Asian case examples with the voices of the people involved on the CYEP (volunteers, officers, service recipients) who explain how volunteering changed their lives, their values, their attitudes toward social, civic and political participation, their ethics and sense of individual responsibility. These stories from the frontlines can be adopted and/or adopted for use by other institutions, but it is also the chance for understanding the emergence of volunteering in Asia overall, and its future direction.

PART I

Theories and concepts of volunteerism and the brief historical background of volunteering in Asia and Hong Kong

1

DEFINING AND CONCEPTUALIZING VOLUNTEERISM

Origins of volunteering

According to Harris and colleagues (2016), non-organized volunteering can be traced back to the origins of humankind, where formal or organized volunteering in associations date back to about 10,000 years. A group of international researchers led by Harris found evidence of various forms of associations in the majority of ancient societies across the world, which suggest that mutual help is an inherent characteristic of humans. Formal volunteering in 19^th and 20^th century increased considerably in Europe, particularly due to population growth, improvements in transportation and communication, the Industrial Revolution, and two World Wars. For example, there was a remarkable increase in the number of members of societies of mutual aid in both France and Italy, between the end of 19^th century and the beginning of 20^th century. Further, it was deemed that by the end of the 20^th century about half of the U.K. population was involved with some type of voluntary association (i.e., recreational, educational, or social).

In the U.S. however, voluntary activities became a prominent element in the history of the American political landscape, when associations were formed for combating slavery across the country, and for anti-British activities during colonial times. However, after World War II and the Korean war from 1958 onwards, voluntarism emerged prolifically in the U.S. This was due to many factors, including the number of post-war veterans, changes in socio-demographics, governments contracting social services and then creating new markets, better education and employment opportunities for women, increased civil rights awareness, and veteran’s organizations, among others. It was during these final years of the 20^th century (in the U.S.), that volunteer service programs and the so-called voluntary sector truly emerged in the non-profit, or third sector. The concept of “third sector” was created by Cornuelle (1965), and Levitt (1973) who were the first to use this term to explain this evolution.

Volunteering and social work

Historically, social work became a profession around the turn of the 19^th century, and in Europe, the first professional school of social work was established in Amsterdam, in 1899 (Healy, 2008). Prior to that, volunteers did not normally receive any formal training. An important European figure in the development of social work education was Octavia Hill (1838–1912), a teacher from London who spent most of her life helping the poor. She was particularly concerned with the crowded and unsanitary local housing, as she believed that living in a clean and well-maintained environment was one of the essential needs of life that afforded people with minimal dignity. However, she was also aware that simply solving the local London housing issue was not enough to overcome its social issues, but this was only a first step toward the nation’s social welfare development.

On the one hand, she believed that only intervention by the state (e.g., providing more adequate public housing) was not sufficient, without the combined voluntary participation of its citizens. Conversely, she also believed that in most cases, philanthropy and charity fostered dependency, so she advocated for a new approach to such help. She founded the Charity Organization Society in 1869, with its aim being not only to eradicate local urban poverty, but also to train community volunteers to improve their intervention effectiveness. She firmly believed in the role of active citizen community participation, and her cutting edge work was deemed as also essential to the establishment of the social work profession as we know it today (Kendall, 2000). Presently, volunteering is still an integral part of global social work education and training, and most universities require (social work) students to complete one or more volunteering experiences in education, health, or human service agencies during their studies. Recently in Hong Kong, social work students’ self-reported gains in their perception of social work education were positively associated to the number of hours they spent volunteering, suggesting that the experiences and processes of volunteering were similar to those of social work (Cheung & Tang, 2010).

Today, volunteer activities play an increasingly important role in many societies. Particularly in times of budget cuts and growing social problems, the contribution of volunteers is deemed essential (Feit & Holosko, 2013; Stebbins, 2009). Volunteering was initially considered as a form of leisure, or at best, a non-essential kind of community service (Chapman, 2008). However, it has grown over time and across the world, as it represents a model of re-distribution of social capital, and an effective way for communities to quickly mobilize resources to respond to emergency situations. Currently, volunteering is a tool for responding to both immediate and long-term needs, for creating awareness, and for gathering citizens in groups to effectively conduct lobbying activities and advocate for the needs of various poor and marginalized sub-groups. Many studies have reported on the positive impacts of volunteering on community and social development, as well as on individual mental and physical health (Degli Antoni, 2009; Fraser, Clayton, Sickler, & Taylor, 2009; Hong & Morrow-Howell, 2010). Today, volunteering has evolved from being simply an act of kindness between a few individuals, to a global social phenomenon which involves professional bodies, governmental organizations, entire communities, societies, and the whole world. As such, it is now at the intersection of various social, cultural, and political agendas (Liu, Ching, & Wu, 2017).

Defining the elusive concept of volunteering

It is difficult to find published works on the historical background of the term “volunteer”. If we turn to online dictionaries for a suggestion of the origin of the term, one says that it originated in a military context around 1600, to indicate how “one who offers himself for military service”; and, the non-military connotation was first recorded in the 1630s (Online Etymology Dictionary). Similarly, the term “volunteerism” can be traced back to 1844, with reference to the armed forces, whereas its use in reference to altruistic volunteer participation to community activities is far more recent (1977) (Online Etymology Dictionary). Volunteering describes an altruistic voluntary act, without coercion, and/or monetary rewards. The etymology of the term derives from the Latin voluntas, meaning will. The concept of will is central to both European and American philosophies, and Christian theology. In philosophy, (free) “will” is considered an autonomous feature, one who is free to do what s/he wants to do. However, in Christianity will is understood as the will of the Lord, meaning that one is free to show concern to others and to volunteer, because this typically means responding to a calling from God (Haers & von Essen, 2015).

Even though volunteering is commonly understood as a provision of free services, a consensually accepted definition of volunteering is still missing (Cnaan, Handy, & Wadsworth, 1996). Additional confusion is generated by the fact that the term volunteering today is frequently adopted for indicating activities that are not necessarily voluntary. For example, these may include activities that are part of judicial mandates, or that are required as part of classes/courses in schools (Liu et al., 2017).

According to Cnaan and colleagues (1996), volunteerism is best described along four intersecting dimensions: 1) free will (it is voluntary by nature); 2) type of rewards (remuneration); 3) formal organization; and, 4) identity of (or proximity to) beneficiaries. Additionally, in order to further clarify volunteering and distinguish it from other pro-social behaviours, some have posited that it should be deliberately planned, and prolonged over time within an organized context (Penner, 2004). A well-regarded definition of volunteering was provided by Snyder and Omoto (2008): “freely chosen and deliberate helping activities that extend over time, which are engaged in without expectation of reward or other compensation and often through formal organizations, and that are performed on behalf of causes or individuals who desire assistance” (p. 3). However, this definition has some limitations and remains rather generic, so that it does not really help to operationalize the concept. Second, it may be culturally biased. Third, it does not capture the most recent forms of occasional engagement in today’s volunteering (Liu et al., 2017).

The United Nations General Assembly with Resolution 56/38 of 5 December 2001, defined volunteering as “an activity undertaken out of free will, for the general public good, and where monetary reward is not the principal motivating factor” (United Nations, 2014). The U.N. further describes volunteerism as a basic expression of human relationships that reciprocally transforms both volunteers and stakeholders, helps to eliminate poverty, improves basic health and education, addresses environmental issues and social exclusion, and prevents potential violence. As volunteerism across the world grows, and becomes an essential component of social, economic, and environmental sustainable development, in December 2015, the United Nations General Assembly ratified Resolution 70/129 and named it “Integrating volunteering into peace and development: The plan of action for the next decade and beyond”. They identified three strategic objectives (for 2016–2030): “1) to strengthen people’s ownership of the development agenda through enhanced civic engagement and enabling environments for citizen action; 2) to integrate volunteerism into national and global implementation strategies for the post-2015 development agenda; and, 3) to measure volunteerism to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the engagement of people and their well-being and be part of the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals.” (United Nations Volunteers, 2016, p.30).

Another well-cited best practice reference for defining volunteerism was presented in the ILO Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work, developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, partnered with the International Labour Organization (ILO) (International Labour Organization, 2011). The ILO manual defines volunteer work as: “Unpaid non-compulsory work; that is, time individuals give without pay to activities performed either through an organization or directly for others outside their own household” (International Labour Organization, 2011, p.13). The manual clearly specifies that volunteering: involves work; it is unpaid (although reimbursement of travel costs or costs of equipment, symbolic gifts, and/or stipends that are not contingent on market value, quality or quantity of the work, do not necessarily violates this definition); is non-compulsory or non-obligatory; and, does not limit the scope of volunteer work to a particular beneficiary; and, embraces both “direct” and “organization-based” volunteering.

As noted in the literature, the term volunteerism globally spans a broad range of activities. As cross-cultural research has developed over time, the precise criteria for defining volunteerism has become broader in scope. For example, initially some regarded only the long-term delivery of services within an organizational context, with clear roles, regular attendance, and supervision as “formal” volunteering. Conversely, individual help offered to non-relatives, out of any organizational context was referred to as “informal” volunteering. This longstanding distinction between “formal” and “informal” volunteering seems to implicitly describe what form of volunteering is more legitimate, and/or valuable (Carson, 1999). However, because formal volunteering is very common in many Western societies but not as much in Asian societies, it is now generally accepted that volunteering can be either performed through an organized association, or offered directly by individuals to recipients. Similarly, earlier definitions of volunteering normally included a temporal variable; as all volunteers generally required some sort of long-term commitment, and only those helping activities that were carried out for extended periods of time (e.g., three or six months) were deemed as volunteering. However today, pre-determined lengths of time no longer define what is, or is not volunteering, and many volunteering activities (e.g., environmental protection), are ones that typically involve a large number of persons for a single day or event, or are for the purpose of arousing public awareness and advocating for some social issues. Basic features that describe contemporary volunteering include: 1) non-obligatory activities; 2) being unpaid; and, 3) are targeted for the benefit of others. However, these criteria still leave a few issues rather unclear. For instance, any activity that is non-obligatory can likely be deemed as voluntary; however, this does not necessarily qualify it as volunteering. In some cases, an individual may feel that s/he can hardly refuse (gentle coercion) to volunteer, e.g., if volunteering provides students some additional credits for their studies, or is perceived as a necessary step prior to formal job-hunting, or is an alternative to incarceration. As such, the issue of it being “non-obligatory” and alone, does not imply that such an activity is developed out of one’s own altruistic will, and/or for some vocation.

Second, it is very difficult to assess one’s true motivational reasons for volunteering. Ideally, both service recipients and volunteers gain from their interactions. It would be naïve to contend that all people volunteer altruistically, just to do good for others. Indeed, volunteering does not connote or promote the notion of “sacrifice”. Instead, it is important that volunteer motives and expectations should be tabled, recognized, and elaborated collaboratively (i.e., with their supervisor in the agency, or some other professional), so as to improve the whole volunteering experience, for all volunteers, the agency, and other community stakeholders. Additional benefits of volunteering may include: making new friends, learning about other people/societies, gaining new experiences, learning new skills, finding meaning/purpose in life, travelling to new places, and/or sharing experiences that one would not be able to have otherwise. Some critics of volunteerism have pointed out that volunteers may “need” vulnerable, and/or poor persons to help, more so than they themselves need to volunteer (Lupton, 2011). For example, some people who have experienced distress in their own personal lives (e.g., divorce, abandonment, death of loved ones), may unconsciously aspire to overcome their own personal issues by helping others who are (perceived as) weak, thus dependent, and then unlikely to abandon those who chose to help them. Further, in examining the phenomenon of charitable organizations in the third world, Zizek (1997) suggested that making any kinds of financial contributions offer wealthier people a type of substitute-redemption, and in turn, makes them feel good. At the same time, historically, charity keeps poor people in their condition of need, preventing them from actually questioning the causes of their conditions. The existence of such “selfish” motives for volunteering is not new to researchers. For example, the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) (Clary et al., 1998) – a tool for assessing volunteers’ motives – includes among its six factors a sub-scale for assessing so-called “protective motives”, described as a way of protecting the ego from the difficulties of life (e.g., volunteering as a means for escaping negative feelings, reducing sense of guilt, etc.).

Volunteering across various countries

Volunteering is normally described by psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists as a universally motivated human behaviour, as it was historically observed among many societies (Butcher & Einolf, 2017), implying that volunteering is not a learned behaviour, nor specific only to some cultures. However, as volunteering is expressed in different forms and under different circumstances in various societies, cross-cultural measurement and comparison of volunteering participation is difficult, if not impossible. Today, a few initiatives have compared the rates of volunteerism across nations. One is the Johns Hopkins Comparative Non-profit Sector project, which bi-annually compares formal volunteering in 45 countries of all regions of the world. Comparing developed and developing countries, their ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• PART I: Theories and concepts of volunteerism and the brief historical background of volunteering in Asia and Hong Kong
• PART II: Examples of theory into practice: Implementing the City-Youth Empowerment Project and its five selected programmes
• PART III: Conclusions
• Index