Civil Initiatives in the Field of Overcoming Social Exclusion: Meanings and Practices of Participation

Recently there is a lot of attention to the Russian nonprofit sector. Researchers notice that a lot of things about charitable giving in Russia is changing. One of the noticeable changes is about the scope of problems covered by NGO's is expanding. One of the latest trends is growing number of organizations helping homeless people. Homeless people are usually seen as stigmatized and marginal individuals who cannot find a job and therefore it is themselves to blame for their social status. Taking this attitude into account, it is interesting why do Russian people decide to help homeless and want to overcome their social exclusion. in order to answer this question quantitative study and 20 interviews were conducted. In this Thesis we will try outline motives and practices of charitable help for homeless people. The study aim demonstrate that there is a multi-dimensional motivational structure in this sphere of charity, which is based on emotions, civic values, experience, values and attitudes.