VOLUNTEERISM AND DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT IN KURIA EAST AND WEST SUB-COUNTIES, MIGORI COUNTY; SOUTH-WESTERN KENYA

Abstract

Democratic development is hard to achieve without citizens' involvement through public participation. Public participation is achieved when individuals freely volunteer themselves, their ideas, time and other resources for their community’s socio-economic growth and development. Politicians and administrators may mobilize for community action without appreciating and quantifying the sacrifice by individuals attending to community action, and its contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This study was designed to establish the influence of volunteerism on democratic development in Kuria East and West Sub Counties in South West Kenya. The study set out to determine the influence of volunteerism on democratic development in Kuria East and West Sub-Counties; find out whether volunteerism is a factor that motivated popular participation in study area; determine the influence of volunteerism on popular participation initiatives, and to establish the factors which motivated people to volunteer in community action. The study was informed by the Theory of Planned Behaviour and adopted the descriptive survey design. The target population was 256,086 residents of Kuria East and West Sub Counties in twelve administrative wards. The sample size was 500 respondents selected through random sampling techniques from the twelve administrative wards. The main data collection instrument was the questionnaire, which was administered by research assistants. Secondary data was collected from various sources, both print and electronic, including journals, books, theses, dissertations and government reports. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Descriptive statistics was used to interpret the data. Findings from the study indicate that volunteerism influenced the status of democratic development in Kuria East and West Sub counties by encouraging popular participation.77.6% of the respondents agreed to the statement that volunteerism leads to freer participation in community action whereby. 38.7% of the respondent strongly agreed while, 48.9% agreed with the statement. Likewise, a total of 69.6% agreed with the statement that, popular participation in community projects enhances democratic decisions. Volunteerism in Kuria East and West Sub-Counties helps the community to identify appropriate local leadership in charting the path for sustainable development. It promotes democratic values and enhances self-esteem and confidence, as important values of democracy and development. Kuria community is a typical local community in Kenya that benefits from volunteerism as a means to democratic development. The findings from this study creates a national need that requires the government to recognize volunteerism even in fiscal terms and create it into a national programme that would translate into a national volunteer service and put in place relevant laws and policies for management and regulation of the sector whose contribution would go a long way to reconstruct the state.