Students of Special Pedagogy - Tutorship and their Voluntary Activities

This bachelor thesis is concerned with volunteering activities of students of Special Education at the Faculty of Health and Social Studies, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice. The introductory theoretical part describes the concept of altruistic activities, volunteering and their brief historical context. Later it focuses closely on more specific forms and areas of volunteering the personality and characteristics of a volunteer, his or her motivations and benefits. The non-profit sector is mentioned as a relevant part of our society in which volunteers are an all-important element. Specifically it describes the activities of a volunteer centre Hestia; eg. Which methods are being used to address individuals willing to participate in volunteering activities? Leaflets, handouts and recruitment operations are a suitable way of raising awareness as well as the use of nowadays very popular Internet and various social platforms. Young people and students are in this way informed about recent activities and offers for cooperation. A volunteer coordinator is usually in charge of recruitment. Each volunteer centre has a unique offer of programs that usually vary by area. They also have different target groups, different goals and methods of fulfilling those goals. The theoretical part deals with specific organisations, which allow volunteers to participate in their own desired ways. One such organisation residing in České Budějovice is ADRA; a centre which values and cares about its volunteers. People in need (Člověk v tísni) is yet another briefly mentioned organisation that runs on the initiative and passion of its volunteers and employees. Charita České Republiky (Charity of the Czech Republic) offers a wide variety of activities for people truly interested in volunteering. These individuals must, among other things, pass an interview and fill in a form. One of the well-known volunteer centre programs is the preventive Pět P Program (The Five P's Program) it is mentioned in the thesis among other programs of volunteering not only for students, but for anyone interested. International programs and programs abroad are listed as well, especially for young people who often crave new experiences. The last part of this study describes briefly the field of Special Education and the character of a pedagogue. Examples of specific activities that were directly supported by the Faculty of Health of the University of South Bohemia are given. The aim of this study is to determine which specific volunteering activities were most sought by the students of Special Education. Furthermore the study analyses the student's motives for participating in volunteering programmes. A quantitative research was used to fulfil this goal, specifically the use of printed questionnaires handed out to respondents. The research set consisted of 114 full time study respondents. Next chapter presents results in the form of charts and diagrams. These result show that less than 50% of respondent students participate in some form of volunteer activity. Their motivations range from a sole desire to gain new experiences to a wish to spend their leisure time in a meaningful way. Their volunteering activities are both short and long term and they in general prefer to get involved in health and social areas; they prefer working directly with clients in organisations or assisting with organising different types of leisure time activities and entertainment. The aim of this study was not only to identify the different reasons and motives behind volunteering participation, but also why some respondents choose not to participate. The most frequent reason appeared to be lack of sufficient information and a preference to invest one's free time in financially profitable activities. Less than 50% of respondents stated they would like to do some sort of volunteering activity in the future, namely to work with children or in health and social areas