“I DO NOT TRUST THESE ORGANIZATIONS!” WHY UNIVERSITY STUDENTS DO NOT VOLUNTEER IN TURKEY

Why some people do not volunteer? After doing a comprehensive literature review we summarized all potential reasons that have been mentioned so far. However, we also found important discrepancies between different studies. Thus, we concluded that an exploratory research can be useful to understand why people do not volunteer. In this study, by conducting nine focus groups we analyzed why university students from various disciplines of social sciences do not volunteer in Turkey. Focus groups were realized with 52 university students in Istanbul. Results revealed that the primary reason for the reluctance of university students to volunteer was related to trust issues. In other words, in Turkey, university students do not volunteer as they do not trust NGOs. Some other important reasons were also discussed in the article