Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relationships between forced displacement and volunteering through a focus on the voluntary activities of young refugees in Uganda. Research on the voluntary activities of young refugees and how this affects their employability has been overlooked and the paper hopes to address this.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the relationships between forced displacement and volunteering through a focus on the voluntary activities of young refugees (aged 15 - 25) in Uganda. While significant attention has been paid to the volunteering behaviour of young Ugandans, research on the voluntary activities of young refugees and how this affects their employability has been overlooked. The paper discusses findings from Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda (RYVU), a large mixed methods research project exploring the volunteering activities of young refugees in multiple settings across the country (www.ryvu.org), and explores how these activities shape pathways to employment, skills acquisition and experiences of inequality. This research examines these activities across four national groupings; Congolese, Burundian, South Sudanese and Somali refugees, within urban and camp-like settings. The framing of the traditional view of volunteering as an act of altruism is critiqued in light of the findings of the project, which examines the agency and motivations of those young refugees who volunteer. The nexus of volunteering and displacement examined in the paper also provides a new lens on the scope of volunteering to foster livelihood opportunities and the potential implications this may have for those organisations who rely on volunteers as a significant part of their workforce.