Causes Of Youth Volunteerism

To volunteer or not to volunteer: How do one’s character, social factors, and resources affect the inclination and likelihood of youths participating in community service? We are confronted with a confounding conundrum that has been alarmingly apparent lately. There is an increasing shortage of social workers that play an instrumental role in meeting the needs of our aging population. As our aging population continues to grow, the number of social workers in Singapore is no longer enough to meet the demands of an aging population. However, at the same time, we are struggling to combat our youth’s disillusioned view of social work. This is problematic since our youths are our aging population’s lifeline. The seemingly bleak future of our

We carried out a photo-taking session for them, played mahjong with them, and tried fervently to interact with them. By reflecting on the outcomes of the project and by exploring the theoretical motivations behind youth volunteerism, this paper will prove that a youth’s character, resources, and social factors can greatly influence their efforts at volunteerism. In addition, this paper will propose an idea to promote youth volunteerism.

The main misconception about social work that led to my disillusionment was cultivated by mandatory volunteer work in secondary school. I was very annoyed by the constant need to clock in hours in order for me to attain a desirable grade for my Co-curricular Activity. I began to see social work as a chore, and as an activity that I would rather avoid doing altogether. Community work was very impersonal for me. I did not interact with the people that I was helping, nor did I try to find out how to make their lives better. All I wanted to do was just get it over and done with. The sympathy I felt for the people in need was shallow and the care I offered

Behavioral theories will be used to explain a youth’s impetus for volunteerism. The average youth has scarce resources. Generally, youths have limited finances, time, and energy to carry out volunteerism. The impetus for their volunteerism is thus an inseparable and interdependent combination of all 3 variables of character, social factors, and resources. The way in which anyone chooses to use their resources is evidently connected to their character and social factors. Hence, we shall look into the character and social factors that youths have. Since motivations are linked to character and social factors, it’d be best to study these motivations. The functional motivation theory essentially postulates that individuals engage in “purposeful activities to fulfill a certain goal, and individuals can perform the same activities to serve different psychological functions” (Clary et al., 1998). This means that anyone that participates in community work engage in volunteerism in order to fulfill certain psychological functions. According to this theory, acts of volunteerism that appear identical may represent different underlying motives. These motives, in turn, may symbolize different psychological functions (Widjaja, 2010). The implication of this theory is that people