Abstract |
Background: In recent years, the voluntary movement has been expanded
and ingratiate with more and more active citizens. The voluntary offer of
organizations and services is extend in many and various fields, like:
protection of environment, provision of social services, humanitarian aid,
enhance of invalid interests etc., with the intent of social development.
Because of the rapid growth of the «Third Sector», the scientific concern is
turned to the reasons which contribute NonGovernmental
Organizations to
constitute an internal part of the National and Global Civil Society. For this
reason, this study will explore the phenomenon of voluntarism under the prism
of social organizations.
Objectives : The main aim of this study was to prominence the variety of
voluntary actions, in the social welfare sector as well as to record the
organizations and groups which take action in this sector. The specific
objectives were: 1) through the existent researches and the National Record
of Social Care Organizations, to create a pilot database, which will include the
NGOs, located in Athens, and related with health and welfare, 2) to collect
data which are related with the actions, the members, the productivity of
finance of those organizations by fill in a questionnaire and 3) to provide first
estimates of their sensitization and involvement in health and welfare issues.
Method: The target group of this study concerns the NonGovernmental
Organizations, which are registered in the National and Prefectorial Record of
Social Care Organizations. The sample of this study was constituted of 80
Organizations, which are situated in Attica and acted in the section of Health
and Social Care. For the data collection, a questionnaire was chosen with
precodedquestions
and the contact method with the sample was either by fax
or by telephone research.
Results : The results came up from the 60% more or less of our sample and
appear with percentage figures, observing the minimum and maximum rate.
The most mainly findings concern: the targetgroup
to whom the NGOs refer
to (children 16.3%), the variety of their actions, and the principal was the
psychological support (12.8%), the funds(private donations 24.6%). In
addition, the premium difficulty of NGOs set off the lack of economical
sources (29.9%) and the finding of volunteers (11.2%).
Conclusions : We could assure that the research set off the variety of
volunteer actions in the section of Social Care. Based on the goals of the
study, a detailed record was done, with the NGOs which are situated in
Athens, and collected data such as: their actions, their funds, their members,
their difficulties etc. This data collection was based on a telephone research.
Therefore, this method came up with low percentage of participation, roughly
60% of the sample was willing to participate, 30% was not found and 10%
denied participating. The data analysis point out the great extent of NGOs
sensitization in the sector of Health and Social Care, contrary to the lowest
extent of government’s participation in all levels.
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