Project Aims and Objectives

The main aims of this project are to investigate what happens to the religious identities and spiritual understandings of young evangelical Christians through participating in faith-based international volunteering projects in Latin America.

More specifically, our objectives are:

1) To detail what happens to religious identities and meanings in the lives of young people before, during and after their participation in faith-based volunteering projects in Latin America.

2) To explore the ways in which young people’s experiences of faith-based volunteering relate to their experiences of being a young person, their transitions to adulthood and what it means to be a religious adult.

3) To understand the role of faith-based volunteering in young people’s formulations of citizenship and social justice.

Research Questions or Problems:

1) How do faith-based organisations perceive the role of volunteering in processes of youth transitions?

2) What role does spirituality and/or religiosity play in emerging adulthood among faith-based international volunteering youth?

3) How does faith-based international volunteering influence the faith and identities of participating youth and their notions of religious community?

4) How do the experiences of evangelical faith-based international volunteers intersect with understandings of global citizenship and conceptions of social justice?