Routledge Empowering Asian Youth through Volunteering: Examples of Theory into Practice (Routledge Studies in Asian Behavioural Sciences)

This book describes the origin, development and current state of volunteerism in Asia and Hong Kong. It also presents a field-tested model of empowering through volunteerism (namely, the CYEP at City University), that involves youth, governmental and non-governmental agencies and their clients in a rapidly changing society. Volunteerism is then described as a "win-win" situation for all stakeholders/actors. Volunteerism converges the needs, the struggles, the personal motives and the aspirations of the volunteers, together with the dreams and the difficulties of the clients, the expertise of the professionals and the (lack of) resources of the agencies, the new values emerging in society, the effects of globalization and the new policies. This book presents actual Asian case examples with the voices of the people involved on the CYEP (volunteers, officers, service recipients) who explain how volunteering changed their lives, their values, their attitudes toward social, civic and political participation, their ethics and sense of individual responsibility. These stories from the frontlines can be adopted and/or adopted for use by other institutions, but it is also the chance for understanding the emergence of volunteering in Asia overall, and its future direction. Review "This book fills a distinct void in the literature about service programs that empower youth to make better decisions with their lives all over the world." – Professor Michael Holosko, Pauline M. Berger Professor of Family and Child Welfare, University of Georgia, School of Social Work, USA. "This book provides a needed assessment of volunteerism and youth empowerment in a part of the world where these issues are largely unknown, particularly for scholars, students, and practitioners outside of Hong Kong and Asia. The cases and analyses presented here can provide insight for the enhancement of volunteerism in societies around the world." – Thomas Bryer, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Administration at the University of Central Florida, USA; Chief Researcher in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities at Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania; and Visiting Professor in the Institute for Public Policy and Professional Practice at Edge Hill University, United Kingdom.   About the Author Elaine Suk Ching Liu is the Assiociate Head and Associate Professor of Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong.