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CHAPTER 5: VOLUNTEERING

5.1 The Scottish Executive placed young people at the heart of its 2004 Volunteering Strategy, ⁹ through the development of a unique new national programme entitled Project Scotland. This was to be underpinned by a renewed emphasis on dismantling the barriers to volunteering; to securing the long-term supply of volunteers; and to improving their everyday volunteering experience.

5.2 As the strategy asserts, the problems of encouraging volunteering by young people are often analogous to those faced by other excluded groups. For example, feelings of not being welcome and lack of confidence on the part of the young people, and perceiving young people as a problem or lacking in skills on the part of some volunteer involvers. Indeed, research carried out by NFO System 3 ¹⁰ in 2004 on behalf of Volunteer Development Scotland, found that there were a number of barriers to volunteering, including perceived lack of time; negative peer pressure; lack of confidence; cost and lack of readily available information. According to the NFO research, young people, along with people from lower socio-economic groups, were most likely to believe that volunteering would leave them out of pocket.

5.3 That said, high numbers expressed an interest, with 72% of 11-15 year olds wanting to volunteer, motivated by the opportunity to see the positive impact of their actions; to work with others; and to gain respect and satisfaction through their achievements. Importantly, the NFO research indicated that people who volunteer when they are young also tend to volunteer when they are older - hence the importance of encouraging and enabling school age children to volunteer. However, the research also found significant differences among socio-economic groups: by the time they begin working, over 40% of the higher socio-economic groups (groups A and B) have volunteered, but only 10% of those in socio-economic groups (groups D and E) have done so.

5.4 Our survey found that around a third of young people (32%) have given up their time for volunteering in the last 12 months, with 12 year old (40%) and 14 year old girls (38%) most likely to have done so, along with those living in a rural area (42%, compared with 28% of urban dwellers). Fifteen year old boys and girls (59% and 60% respectively) are least likely to have volunteered in the last year.

5.5 In line with the types of volunteering found to be most common by the NFO research, among those who have done voluntary work in the last 12 months, young people are most likely to have helped with sports activities, such as raising money, organising events, coaching and score keeping (39% - see Table 5.1. below). This is a form of volunteering particularly popular with boys, with around half of male volunteers having helped in this way (49%). One in five (20%) has helped with an art, music, singing or a drama group, with girls most likely to have volunteered in this way (26%).

Table 5.1: Types of volunteering activity undertaken

5.6 Among those who have done voluntary work in the last 12 months, just fewer than half (46%) have done one of the activities listed in the survey, while one in ten (8%) have done two of the types of activities asked about. Two in five young people (40%) answering this question who have volunteered in the last 12 months have helped in some other way not probed on.

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