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Youth’s Participation Patterns to The Society
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
According to the “World Values Survey”, the percentage of the people participating in
voluntary activities is 1,7% in Turkey. When we compare it with the results of 55 coun-
tries, unfortunately Turkey ranks last on the list. According to the surveys, membership
to a non-governmental organization among young people aged between 15-27 was 8%
in 1999, 4% in 2003 and in 2006 the level was 6%. Volunteering among young people
also varies depending on the social, economic and educational backgrounds. As well as
the majority of the young people participating in voluntary activities are male, they have a
higher education level and they are students (Bağcı, 2013: 49).
These findings reflect the position and role of non-governmental organizations within
the community. Non-governmental organizations have very important functions in devel-
oped, modern and democratic countries. As a political pressure group, non-governmen-
tal organizations play a role in the implementation of participative management. Thus, it is
important in modern democratic countries that individuals become members of non-gov-
ernmental organizations, express themselves and seek their rights. This situation is the
reflection of the “individual” image and value of the individual within the society in West-
ern societies.
In contrast, for Eastern societies, consequently in Turkey instead of individual “communi-
ty” is important from the sociological context. Because of the fact that non-governmen-
tal organizations aren’t developed or organized and they don’t function on the Western
sense, there exist few memberships for associations, foundations and so on. Importance
of the foundations is an undeniable reality during the historical experience of the Ottoman
State. The USA, by taking the Ottoman Foundation System as an example modernized it
and uses functionally but the system hasn’t been institutionalized in Turkey.
Within the context of this historical and sociological reality, there is not enough member-
ship to non-governmental organizations in Turkey. This phenomenon can be observed in
our study (Bayhan, 2013: 155).
Through the non-governmental organizations, voluntary work is the activation and revi-
talization of the will existing in every human’s spirit for participation in the social devel-
opment. Also, voluntary work is a kind of activity which allows a person to get pleasure,
enjoy and be happy by sharing his/her knowledge, skills and experience with the ones
around. Increase and proliferation of the social movements which enables the activation
of voluntary work is possible with the cultural habits and traditions of the society.
In Turkey, non-governmental organizations established so far have been mostly initiatives
based on “sport”, “religious beliefs” and “help”. In general and over the years, activities
carried out by the associations did not contribute to the dissemination of civil under-
standing and initiatives in various fields and couldn’t create the confidence needed by
individuals and communities for the proliferation of voluntary participation. Principles like
“transparency” and “accountability” are quite strange concepts for a lot of non-govern-
mental organizations. Many of the existing non-governmental organizations stay away
