Volunteering levels of young people in voluntary organizations and their expectations

Volunteering is one of the subjects we need today as we did in the past. Volunteering which supports social and economic development both an individual and social level is effective in providing social integrity and prosperity. Basically, volunteering includes the desire of help and being helpful to others. Volunteering is an action that makes goals of voluntary organizations concrete. Voluntary organizations' role in social life that operates in accordance with the goal of social welfare increases almost every day. The most important resource of voluntary organizations is volunteers. Working with these young people enables stakeholder network and field of activity of these organizations to extend. On the other hand, voluntary organizations provide youth to involve in activities and give them the opportunity to gain new experiences and self-improvement. One of the most important social environments for young people to be introduced to these positive effects is universities. Meeting new people, getting into new social circles and getting to know volunteering works usually take place in universities. Within this context, universities are education institutions that young people have the opportunity to practice and experience social inclusion by themselves. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to determine volunteering levels of university students which are active in voluntary organizations and to prove their attitude, opinion and behavior concerning volunteering. Within this context, this study was conducted among university students which participated in volunteering organizations in Yalova during 2014-2015 academic year. A questionnaire was made for 225 university students and SPSS 17.0 statistics program was used in solving the data from the questionnaire. Tables were formed from the data derived and they have been commented on. As a result of the study it is understood that students who study at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences are more likely to volunteer, support of the family has significant impact on young volunteering, voluntary organizations are not sufficiently conscious of themselves, using social media more actively in reaching out to young people is necessary and volunteer activity areas mainly focus on education and social services.