Volunteerism and community healing

Abstract

It is acknowledged that volunteering may help a community heal when it faces a tragic event. The purpose of this study is to analyze the interplay between volunteerism and community healing. Our empirical study focuses on volunteering in the context of memorial playgrounds and is based on extensive secondary data collected from 63 memorial playgrounds. Our research adds renewal and resilience as components of community healing, demonstrates how volunteer orientation toward individual and collective healing changes over the course of the healing process, and emphasizes the significance of making volunteering visible for healing the community. Furthermore, by exploring children’s volunteering and how it might aid in community reconciliation, our findings expand our understanding of inclusive volunteering.