“I Think It’s the Individual Encounters and Being Able to Impact Another Person’s Life in Some Way” - Volunteering with Undocumented Migrants: Exploring the Motivations and Perceived Effects on Health and Well-Being
(2024) MPHN40 20241Social Medicine and Global Health
- Abstract
- Background and Objectives: Volunteering is characterised by an obligation-free action that occurs typically in an organisational setting. Its goals are to improve the health and well-being of others. Volunteering has the possibility of increasing both mental and physical health of volunteers. Values are the guiding motivators to applying for volunteering activities. The thesis aimed to understand why individuals chose to volunteer and investigate the impacts on volunteers’ well-being when participating in activities relating to undocumented migrants’ health.
Methods: Data was collected through eight in-depth interviews. Participants were from different organisations volunteering with causes related to undocumented migrants’ health. The... (More) - Background and Objectives: Volunteering is characterised by an obligation-free action that occurs typically in an organisational setting. Its goals are to improve the health and well-being of others. Volunteering has the possibility of increasing both mental and physical health of volunteers. Values are the guiding motivators to applying for volunteering activities. The thesis aimed to understand why individuals chose to volunteer and investigate the impacts on volunteers’ well-being when participating in activities relating to undocumented migrants’ health.
Methods: Data was collected through eight in-depth interviews. Participants were from different organisations volunteering with causes related to undocumented migrants’ health. The data was analysed by using qualitative content analysis.
Results: The data analysis resulted in two overarching themes: 1) Finding volunteering as a meaningful engagement for societal impact, and 2) Recognising the impacts volunteering has on both the beneficiaries and the volunteers’ well-being. These themes were formed from five different categories; Believing that healthcare is a fundamental right for all, Sense of social justice guiding the reasons for volunteering, included in the first theme, and Acknowledgement of positive impacts volunteering has on their health and well-being, Recognising the importance of community and organisational support, and Challenges and concerns faced building up as stress factors included in the second theme.
Conclusion: Participants motivation to volunteer stemmed from their values obtained from life experiences, with strong beliefs in healthcare being a fundamental right for all. Through volunteering, they hoped to address existing systematic barriers experienced by undocumented migrants. Participants reported volunteering having positive impacts on personal growth, learning, feelings of fulfilment, emphasizing the importance of sense of
belonging. Challenges experienced led to feelings of stress and inadequacy. Overall, this study highlights the diverse reasons for choosing to volunteer and emphasises on the positive effects on one’s health and well-being. (Less) - Popular Abstract
- What are the motivating factors guiding volunteer behaviour and does volunteering lead to positive experiences and impact on health and well-being? Why do people want to give their time and efforts for individuals without any payment, reward, or obligation? Volunteering has a great number of beneficial effects on health and well-being (Yeung et al., 2017), which generally are not the reasons people choose to volunteer.
This thesis sought to understand why individuals chose to volunteer with specific causes and investigate the effects volunteering had on participants health and well-being in the context of Finland. By understanding the motives to volunteer with specific causes, this thesis constitutes to a bigger picture of insight for... (More) - What are the motivating factors guiding volunteer behaviour and does volunteering lead to positive experiences and impact on health and well-being? Why do people want to give their time and efforts for individuals without any payment, reward, or obligation? Volunteering has a great number of beneficial effects on health and well-being (Yeung et al., 2017), which generally are not the reasons people choose to volunteer.
This thesis sought to understand why individuals chose to volunteer with specific causes and investigate the effects volunteering had on participants health and well-being in the context of Finland. By understanding the motives to volunteer with specific causes, this thesis constitutes to a bigger picture of insight for practice initiatives and policies aimed for improving public health. By exploring the experienced health effects of volunteers, this serves as a base of understanding how volunteering benefits both the volunteers itself and the people subjected to volunteering.
This thesis found that motivating factors were underlying values driving them to make societal differences by advocating for healthcare access for all, desiring to address the systematic barriers in Finnish society, raising concern about possible effects the law renewal has on healthcare access, as well as concerns about experiences of discrimination. In addition, this project found that through volunteering, participants experienced positive impacts on their health and well-being by learning opportunities, personal growth, social interactions and fellowship, sense of belonging, and through building trust with other volunteers and undocumented migrants. Challenges faced were due to fluctuating enthusiasm, limited resources, and time, leading to increase in stress and feelings of insufficiency.
Ultimately this study reveals diverse reasons motivating individuals to volunteer and the multidimensional health related impacts they have experienced when volunteering with cause related to undocumented migrants’ health. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9160549
- author
- Karhunen, Iida Juulia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MPHN40 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9160549
- date added to LUP
- 2024-06-10 13:16:41
- date last changed
- 2024-06-10 13:16:41
@misc{9160549,
abstract = {{Background and Objectives: Volunteering is characterised by an obligation-free action that occurs typically in an organisational setting. Its goals are to improve the health and well-being of others. Volunteering has the possibility of increasing both mental and physical health of volunteers. Values are the guiding motivators to applying for volunteering activities. The thesis aimed to understand why individuals chose to volunteer and investigate the impacts on volunteers’ well-being when participating in activities relating to undocumented migrants’ health.
Methods: Data was collected through eight in-depth interviews. Participants were from different organisations volunteering with causes related to undocumented migrants’ health. The data was analysed by using qualitative content analysis.
Results: The data analysis resulted in two overarching themes: 1) Finding volunteering as a meaningful engagement for societal impact, and 2) Recognising the impacts volunteering has on both the beneficiaries and the volunteers’ well-being. These themes were formed from five different categories; Believing that healthcare is a fundamental right for all, Sense of social justice guiding the reasons for volunteering, included in the first theme, and Acknowledgement of positive impacts volunteering has on their health and well-being, Recognising the importance of community and organisational support, and Challenges and concerns faced building up as stress factors included in the second theme.
Conclusion: Participants motivation to volunteer stemmed from their values obtained from life experiences, with strong beliefs in healthcare being a fundamental right for all. Through volunteering, they hoped to address existing systematic barriers experienced by undocumented migrants. Participants reported volunteering having positive impacts on personal growth, learning, feelings of fulfilment, emphasizing the importance of sense of
belonging. Challenges experienced led to feelings of stress and inadequacy. Overall, this study highlights the diverse reasons for choosing to volunteer and emphasises on the positive effects on one’s health and well-being.}},
author = {{Karhunen, Iida Juulia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{“I Think It’s the Individual Encounters and Being Able to Impact Another Person’s Life in Some Way” - Volunteering with Undocumented Migrants: Exploring the Motivations and Perceived Effects on Health and Well-Being}},
year = {{2024}},
}