Abstract:
The purposes of this study were: (1) to study personal motivations of volunteers
in indirect services, (2) to study societal motivations of volunteers in indirect services,
and (3) to investigate the barriers to engagement of youth who non-volunteers in direct
services. This research study is designed based on quantitative approach. The sample
of this study was totally 400 with 200 volunteers and 200 non-volunteer youth in indirect
services in Phnom Penh city. They were selected by using quota and convenient
sampling. The research instruments were questionnaires consisting of four parts. Part
one was personal profile, part two focused on personal motivation to volunteer with 10
items, part three societal motivation to volunteer with 6 items, and part four is barriers to
engage in volunteerism with 7 items. The descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and
inferential statistics (t-test) were employed to analyze the quantitative data. The research
found as follows: (1) the most important factor of personal motivation for youth who
volunteer in indirect services is understanding. By understanding factor, volunteer can
explore their own strengths and enlarge their understanding of the cause and reason by
applying the knowledge that they have learned to help others and learning different
skills, (2) the most important of societal factor motivating indirect services youth
volunteers is career development which statistically generates the highest level of
influence comparing to the other factors. Career function regard volunteer service as a
means to help volunteers career status and development. Volunteering help youth in
Phnom Penh to explore different career options. They also have opportunity to practice
various skills used in the workplace like project planning, problem solving teamwork,
communication, administration and task management. Those opportunity could help
them to gain experience or get a career related-experience that might increase their future earnings, and (3) the factor of family discouragement was the highest barrier to
engagement for youth to involve in volunteering in indirect services in Phnom Penh city.
Most of parent do not allow their children to get involve in volunteering because parents
regard indirect services activity (serving food, building a playground for children, and
cleaning up the community, so on) as a waste of time and money.