Social Innovations in an Emergency Setting: Opportunities and Challenges for Youth Volunteers in Curbing the Spread of COVID-19 in Huye District, Rwanda

Purpose: Following COVID-19 at the close of 2019, countries have been in an emergency to contain the improvised danger to their citizens; Rwanda was no exception. The Government of Rwanda (GoR) turned to investing in different mechanisms to deal with the pandemic, including community-based interventions by youth volunteers, which is considered a social innovation to deal with the improvised societal challenge. This study investigated the motives, opportunities, challenges, and lessons that youth volunteers encountered while curbing the spread of the pandemic at the community level. Theoretical Concept: Social innovation concepts contribute to social change and provide actors with the means to meet societal challenges. The social innovation concepts were adopted as the theoretical concepts underpinning the study. Method: The study followed a descriptive qualitative design. Using key informants and in-depth interview techniques (KIIs), data were collected from 13 interviews with youth volunteers and opinion leaders among citizens of the Huye District of Rwanda who were selected using network and purposive sampling techniques. Interviews were uploaded in MAXQDA 2022 to visualize and map the data. Results: The results indicate that youth volunteers have encountered various challenges where a poor mindset had a big occurrence, followed by aggressive attitudes from beneficiaries of their interventions. However, despite the challenges, there were opportunities whereby youth volunteers showed a high level of patriotism for their country and learned new skills like public speaking. Implications: The study suggests that in similar future interventions, the government should mitigate the identified challenges and enhance the highlighted opportunities for the intervention to be more impactful.