Focusing on the case study of the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ in Greece since 2015, the research highlights new insights into the motivations, experiences, and challenges of international volunteers in humanitarian relief operations. Unlike previous analyses on volunteer motivations, this study’s analytical framework is built on a combination of the functional (psychological) and symbolic (sociological) approach to the theory of motivation. With the help of Clary and Snyder’s Volunteer Functions Inventory, seven motivations of volunteers are outlined. Further, volunteers’ challenges, including psychological stressors are identified with the help of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Building on a mixed methods research design, 66 responses to an online survey were enriched with data from six in-depth interviews. The study displays volunteers’ typical socio-demographic characteristics to be young, female European students, who come to Greece on their own, who finance their stay through personal income, and who tend to stay between one to three months. The analysis reveals volunteers’ motivations to be first and foremost altruistic; however, internationals are also influenced by other, more self-centered motivations, including their desire to learn through hands-on skills, and to advance their career. Motivations to prolong their volunteer commitment or to return to Greece particularly include social bonds built during previous engagements, the incentive to reduce feelings of guilt over being more fortunate than others, and the desire to relive experiences of increased self-fulfillment and personal growth. Dividing the sample by gender and age illustrates somewhat differing motivations among the sub-samples, leading to the conclusion that volunteers’ motivations are diverse, multifaceted, fluid, and placed somewhere along a spectrum between altruistic and egoistic aspirations. The study of people’s experiences overall suggests high satisfactions among the volunteers; however, sentiments of feeling at times overwhelmed and stressed are very present among most volunteers, regardless the length of their stay Greece or their performed activities. The workload, a too heavy burden of responsibility, lack of sufficient time to reenergize, lack of managerial support, and conflicts among volunteers particularly have the potential to lead to emotional exhaustion, depersonalized behavior, and challenges when returning home.

No description available.

Master of Science / Department of Horticulture, Forestry, and Recreation Resources / Candice A. Shoemaker / Once a fixture of American schoolyards during the early 1900’s, school gardens in the United States are again growing in popularity. It is estimated that one-fourth of all public and private schools in the U.S. have a school garden. Funding, teacher involvement, support of the principal, volunteer help, garden coordination, maintenance assistance and site availability are all factors found to contribute to the success of school gardens and are also found to be the barriers to sustainability of school gardens. Many of these challenges can be overcome with the support of volunteers. Little is known however, about individuals who volunteer their time to a school garden program and more importantly no research has investigated the specific variables influencing volunteer retention in an after-school garden club program setting. A case-study of long-term adult after-school garden club program volunteers was conducted to determine the variables affecting one’s decision to continue volunteering after one semester with a program of this type. Twenty long-term after-school garden club program volunteers were interviewed. Interview responses were grouped into main theme and subtheme categories using NVivo, a qualitative analysis software. Main themes that had responses from at least 95% of the volunteers participating in the case-study, were isolated for further analysis. The top five subthemes for each of these isolated main themes were assessed and four of these main themes were found to have similar top five subthemes. These subthemes and the long-term volunteer demographics were then used to determine the variables affecting volunteer retention in an after-school garden club setting. Age, marital status and level of education were all found to affect length of volunteer service. Organizational commitment, positive volunteer relations, organizational support, learning opportunities and the opportunity to work with children all contributed to the decision of after-school garden club program volunteers to continue volunteering after one semester of service. Furthermore, it can be concluded that these volunteers continued to volunteer because their initial motivations, expectations and/or needs were met through their participation in the program.

This social constructionist study originated from the researcher’s exposure to the counselling volunteers environment. The study aimed to document the voices of three people, constructed as counselling volunteers. The three semi-structured interviews are with individuals who constructed themselves, or accepted the constructions of their role, as volunteers. The “case study approach” was chosen as the most suitable method to gather the information. “Thematic content analysis” was the method of analysis. The case studies of participants were reconstructed in terms of themes. Recurring themes in these case studies were expounded and linked within the literature. This study allowed valuable and rich information about the volunteerism to emerge. Amongst the themes that emerged, the need to help, being a good counsellor and resilience were identified as particularly important areas for future research. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

This social constructionist study originated from the researcher’s exposure to the counselling volunteers environment. The study aimed to document the voices of three people, constructed as counselling volunteers. The three semi-structured interviews are with individuals who constructed themselves, or accepted the constructions of their role, as volunteers. The “case study approach” was chosen as the most suitable method to gather the information. “Thematic content analysis” was the method of analysis. The case studies of participants were reconstructed in terms of themes. Recurring themes in these case studies were expounded and linked within the literature. This study allowed valuable and rich information about the volunteerism to emerge. Amongst the themes that emerged, the need to help, being a good counsellor and resilience were identified as particularly important areas for future research. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

This study embarked on exploring the experience of becoming and being a lay volunteer counsellor from a psychological perspective. Six participants were interviewed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as the research method. Race and gender are divided equally amongst Black, Caucasian, male, and female participants. Numerous dimensions relating to the lived experience of lay volunteer counsellors are investigated in the present literature, suggesting that the experience of becoming and being a lay volunteer counsellor is multifaceted. The subjective experience of each of the participants was explored, with the optimism that this exploration would expound on the multilateralism of these facets. Although specific experiences remain exclusive to each participant, the intersecting and co-creation of meanings culminated in the cultivation of themes common to the participants. These themes are examined against the literature, critically appraising supportive and distinct suggestions. As is evident from the results, participants have a profound appreciation of the stimuli which influence their experiences of lay volunteer counselling, but also of the circumstances surrounding the origins of their sense of volunteerism. Even though some of the literature addressed themes relevant to the participants’ experiences, a small number of themes could not be juxtaposed against available literature. Based on the narratives of the participants, as well as data in the literature, volunteers constitute a reasonable component of the service sector and assist a sizeable population. Therefore, the value of the lay volunteer counselling population should be recognised in order to develop further training and support programmes for this subpopulation. As it appears, recognising the essence of this value begins with appreciating the experience of becoming and being a lay volunteer counsellor. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Psychology / unrestricted