The article was received on January 11, 2021
Discussing the effects of volunteering, it is worth noting that working on a volunteer basis provides an opportunity to develop social contacts [5, 6]. Moreover, researchers have shown that participation in volunteer services improves the quality of life [7, 9, 34] and the self-esteem of volunteers [30]. Experts state that participation in volunteering increases personal responsibility, while it can reduce feelings of alienation and loneliness among people with reduced capabilities [13, 29].
In addition, volunteering, which involves donated services, may help a disabled person transform from a standard service receiver to a service provider [25]. However, there are certain limitations to people with reduced capabilities providing volunteer services. This is due to the fact that not all organizations enable people with reduced capabilities to participate in volunteering [19, 23], as well as various difficulties the organizations that provide volunteer services have to face. For instance, problems in providing access for this category of citizens to volunteer services [3, 31], low awareness about their physical limitations and other prejudice existing in society [10, 32], refusal of some specialists to work with disabled people or the absence of specially trained employees to interact with them [5, 6, 26].
Russian researchers argue that volunteering which involves people with health problems should be based on the following principles:
• value of a person with reduced capabilities does not depend on their abilities and achievements;
• every person with reduced capabilities is able to feel and think;
• every person with reduced capabilities has the right to communicate and be heard [1].
Volunteering is a goal-oriented assistance activity of varying duration without the expectation of material reward [35]. Researchers quite often focus on studying the motivation of volunteers [14]. Publications on volunteering offer a spacious approach to the motivation for participating in volunteer services and the benefits it gives. For example, studies among adults with intellectual disabilities have stated occupation as one of the main reasons for volunteering [20, 32, 36]. It should be noted that people with reduced capabilities face a lot of barriers entering the paid employment market, for example, lack of trust, low level of education, and the complexity of social interactions [33, 37]. Thus, volunteering can enable them to gain professional skills and work experience to get a suitable job in the future [11, 21].