Abstract:
The current study investigated the challenges and enablers for youth
volunteers in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic in the Huye District
of Rwanda. Specifically, the study investigated (1) the policy motives
for youth in controlling the pandemic; (2) the strategies, challenges,
opportunities, and lessons for youth volunteers while controlling the
pandemic; (3) social media engagement for youth volunteers’ selfresilience while controlling the pandemic and (4) the moral dispositions
that guided the youth volunteers’ interventions. The study adopted
a qualitative approach by studying 6 government policy documents
and conducting 21 semi-structured interviews with youth volunteers
and those who worked with them from the government, and citizens
who were selected using purposive and network sampling techniques.
The study used content, descriptive qualitative, and narrative thematic
analyses, with data mapped and visualized using MAXQDA software.
Theoretically, the study was mainly guided by social innovation
concepts, in addition to specific theories that inspired each published
work. The study identified four institutional-level and four individuallevel policy motives. The study also identified four opportunities
and four obstacles for youth volunteers, including training that later
helped them compete in the job market and the risk of COVID-19
infection, respectively. Lessons learned by youth volunteers were
also identified, and these include public speaking. Social media
were helpful in information gathering, & dissemination, facilitating
collaborative problem-solving, and coping with new situations. Also,
the youth volunteers’ sense of patriotism for their country was among
the factors that led to their involvement, guided by the identified moral
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dispositions like patriots, public benefactors, and innovators. The
study recommends that community interventionists should understand
and consider the role of policies, possible moral dispositions, the role
of social media, and challenges & opportunities that may impact their
interventions and understand the contribution that each has to the
client.
