Uneven geographies of youth volunteering in Uganda: Multi-scalar discourses and practices

Smith, Matt Baillie; Mills, Sarah; Okech, Moses; Fadel, Bianca

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.05.006

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 34 publications

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“…This section details some of the main ways in which young people make a living in the Karamoja and Busoga subregions of Uganda. Through our survey and interviews, we identified a wide variety of livelihood activities in which young people are engaged, including juggling paid work (including self-employment/entrepreneurship and employment/working for someone else) with education, volunteering and unpaid tasks (including domestic and care work) (Namuggala 2017;Baillie Smith et al 2022;Shankland et al 2022). Before we look in more detail at how these various roles overlap and intersect in individuals' lives, this section outlines the labour market possibilities that young people have (Table 2).…”

Section: Portfolio Livelihoodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young people ‘making it work’ in a changing climate

Barford,

Magimbi,

Mugeere

et al. 2023

JBA

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Globally, young people face weak labour market demand and have been particularly susceptible to recent livelihood stresses and shocks linked to climate change. In this article, we consider what happens when young people face intersecting challenges including climate change. While much of the literature focuses on barriers to work and how to break these, we consider young people�s struggles and successes in securing and maintaining work. The focus is on Uganda, demographically one of the world�s youngest countries and home to a largely �underemployed� cohort of young people. Our findings identify some of the many ways in which climate change disrupts young people�s livelihoods. Young people are already proactively responding to climate change. This points to the need for other actors to learn from young people�s existing endeavours, to build in more support and opportunities, manage risk and insecurity, and construct a more climate change-resilient infrastructure.

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Section: Portfolio Livelihoodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young people ‘making it work’ in a changing climate

Barford,

Magimbi,

Mugeere

et al. 2023

JBA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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The scale, forms and distribution of volunteering amongst refugee youth populations in Uganda

Fadel,

Baillie Smith,

Mills

et al. 2024

Population Space and Place

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Geographies of volunteering have examined the relationships between people, places and forms of voluntary action, but there has been limited geographical scholarship on the scales, forms and distribution of volunteering amongst specific populations in different settings, particularly in the global South. While in the global North there are some established quantitative data sets, often produced by humanitarian and development organisations, these are largely absent in the South. Where they do exist, they often reflect Western‐centric ideas and concepts, meaning that volunteering behaviours that do not fit Western norms—such as amongst young refugees in the global South—can be excluded, or captured in ways that are partial or unrepresentative. This paper provides an important challenge to existing geographies of volunteering, expanding them through an account of volunteering amongst young refugees in Uganda, and how it articulates with social inequalities within and between the spaces and places where young refugees live. We analyse quantitative data from 3053 young refugees surveyed on their volunteering experiences in rural and urban settings in Uganda. The data provides new evidence of who these volunteers are, beyond their refugee status, why, where and how they conduct their activities, and reveals how these are connected to livelihoods and community development. Through this survey analysis, the paper argues for the need to establish grounded conceptualisations of volunteering that consider the scales, distribution, and various forms of volunteering within specific groups. In doing so, the paper offers a new framework for better understanding the relationships between volunteering and refugee lives through four interlocking factors: place, (im)mobility, income and gender. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for wider geographies of volunteering and research on refugee youth and displaced populations.

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Assessing the ‘Why’ in Volunteering for Refugees: Exploring Volunteer Motivations

2023

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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 (N = 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.

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Uneven geographies of youth volunteering in Uganda: Multi-scalar discourses and practices

Cited by 5 publications

References 34 publications

Young people ‘making it work’ in a changing climate

Young people ‘making it work’ in a changing climate

The scale, forms and distribution of volunteering amongst refugee youth populations in Uganda

Assessing the ‘Why’ in Volunteering for Refugees: Exploring Volunteer Motivations

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