Volunteering in environment conservation program: gain or loss?

Abstract

Participation in an environmental conservation volunteer program provides secondary school students with the opportunity to establish a direct connection to their environment while contributing to the conservation of its natural heritage. The volunteering experiences also offer various forms of benefits to the volunteers as they ride through the challenges and learning experiences. A case study was conducted to explore the experiences of forty-five secondary school students who had volunteered in an environmental conservation volunteer program in the state of Perak. The study utilized focus group discussions to collect data. All discussions were audio-recorded and analyzed thematically using a two-layer constant comparative analysis method, triangulated using observations and reflection notes. Four themes emerged from the analysis to describe the benefits student volunteers gained from their active participation in the volunteer program. The challenges they experienced throughout their participation in the program were also described.

Keywords:

• Environmental conservation volunteer program
• program designing
• volunteering benefits and challenges
• secondary school students
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge that the study was supported by Universiti Putra Malaysia Geran Putra IPM (GP-IPM/2017/9522400) and Geran Putra (UPM/ 700-2/1/GP/2017/9553500).