The effect of immigrants' participation in volunteering activities on integration

In Turkey which has faced a very intense wave of immigration in recent years, many field studies are carried out for the integration of immigrants into the country. Most of these studies are carried out with the voluntary support of immigrants. In addition, immigrants take an active part in many different volunteer activities, thus gaining some gains that will facilitate their integration process into Turkey. This thesis deals with the effects of the voluntary activities of immigrants who came to Turkey from different countries with forced migration on their adaptation processes with the host people. The phenomenological approach, one of the qualitative research methods, has been chosen in order to present the phenomenon of volunteering, which is given by voluntary immigrants, in a realistic and holistic way by considering it in its own world. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants who migrated from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq to Turkey. Immigrants participate in volunteer activities in order to help people, to destroy the negative perception towards immigrants, to feel good and happy and to adapt to Turkey better. Concordantly, volunteering activities are effective in terms of adapting to Turkey, supporting psychological resilience and contributing to personal development. Volunteer immigrants started to use Turkish better and more efficiently at the end of the activities they participated in, had the opportunity to get to know Turkish culture more closely, and developed friendships by interacting socially with people around them, especially Turkish people.