Voluntary Work during Times of Military Crisis: What Motivates People to Be Involved and What Are the Effects on Well-Being?

Abstract

The positive health effects of volunteering are quite well described in the literature; however, potential negative effects of volunteering are less explored. Volunteering got attention in Ukraine because of the recent political crisis that brought military conflict to the Eastern part of the country in 2014. Informal volunteering has transformed into a formal one. In order to be able to organize volunteering that promotes well-being, it is important to have more in-depth knowledge about motives behind volunteering as well as the positive and potential negative effects of it. We explore the case voluntary work in of one of the cities in Ukraine. Military conflict context has its own specifics and different motives make people act voluntarily. There are goal-oriented, value-oriented, affectual and traditional motives present in our data. The data shows that involvement in volunteering brings positive returns on well-being of the providers such as enlarging the circles of friendship and expanding the networks volunteers involved in; brings positive emotions into life; compensates the efforts and gives meaning to life. However, the negative effects of volunteering are also present. They are physical tiredness and a lot of time spent on volunteering activities; becoming disconnected from the ordinary (non-volunteering) world; unsafety; neglect of own needs and experiences of negative emotions out of the involvement in volunteering activities.