Meijeren Maikel, Lubbers Marcel, Scheepers Peer
Department of Sociology, Radboud University, Thomas van Aquinostraat 4, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science/ERCOMER, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Voluntas. 2023 May 25:1-11. doi: 10.1007/s11266-023-00574-y.
This article addresses what motivations volunteers have for volunteering for refugees and whether these motivations differ from or complement motivations to volunteer in general, such as included in the widely used measurement instrument, the Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI). We organized eight focus groups with volunteers for refugees ( = 44) and interviewed five involved coordinators, all working in one city in the Netherlands. Results show that humanitarian concerns and social justice were highly relevant for people's motivations, next to volunteering to obtain or improve knowledge and skills. We find support for the earlier suggested extension of the VFI with the social justice motivation. Next, the current study expands existing analysis on volunteer motivations by identifying four areas that require further attention: (1) volunteers for refugees seek a meaningful role in life; (2) are motivated by the pragmatism of this volunteer work; (3) have emotional reasons; and (4) are motivated by media exposure.
本文探讨了志愿者为难民提供志愿服务的动机，以及这些动机与一般志愿服务动机（如广泛使用的测量工具《志愿者功能量表》（VFI）中所包含的动机）是否不同或互补。我们组织了八个为难民提供志愿服务的志愿者焦点小组（n = 44），并采访了五位相关协调员，他们都在荷兰的一个城市工作。结果表明，除了为了获得或提高知识与技能而做志愿者外，人道主义关怀和社会正义与人们的动机高度相关。我们支持之前提出的将社会正义动机纳入VFI的建议。其次，本研究通过确定四个需要进一步关注的领域，扩展了对志愿者动机的现有分析：（1）为难民服务的志愿者在生活中寻求有意义的角色；（2）受这项志愿工作务实性的激励；（3）有情感方面的原因；（4）受媒体曝光的激励。
