Browsing by Author "Hannula, Satu"

Parents are to an increasing extent guiding their children to take part in organized leisure time activities. The volunteers who usually steer the activity groups are the parents of the children involved. The parents generally finish their work as volunteers at the same time with their children. However, few of them continue working as volunteers in the same organization. In this thesis I examine this kind of parents by interpreting their talk around the topic. The main concepts of this study are Commitment and the Forms of capital. The commitment is essential for the continuity of the volunteer work. The reason to use the forms of capital concept is that it is a crucial prerequisite for a person to possess in order to be able to work as a volunteer. The aim of this study is to find the reasons behind the commitment of long term duration. It is important for voluntary organizations to identify the reasons since they lose valuable knowledge and experience with the individuals leaving the organization. The target group of the study consisted of 11 parents. All of them had started as volunteers at the same time with their children and continued even after their own children gave up the leisure activity. The data consisted of interviews and it was analyzed using a qualitative content analysis method. Two main categories were formed on the grounds of an analysis: the first one consisting of individual based and the other collective based reasons to work as a volunteer. Commitment was defined as a uniting high level category. The most significant factor to explain the commitment was the relationships among adults and children in the organization. The social capital of volunteers increased because of these relationships. Out of the individual based reasons the most significant one was considering the volunteer work as a way of life. Volunteers were able to find time and prioritize the work because they found it meaningful for themselves and were committed to it. The challenge to find the time for the work was significant and the lack of it limited the participation. This was defined as a category of its own. The other challenge was a tension between the different roles of a volunteer. The need to balance between the roles of a parent and a volunteer was decreased after the children of their own had given up the leisure time activity. The other reasons to continue as a volunteer, according to the data, were competence development, emotional reasons, social and community based reasons and willingness to contribute to the development of the organization they worked for.