Scarred by the experience of war, transcending the demands of postwar reconstruction, and emerging into an era of prosperity, Japan saw rising among her people the spirit of mutual help, volunteerism, and commitment to the values of peace and understanding in the world. A sterling example of this spirit is the JAPAN OVERSEAS COOPERATION VOLUNTEERS (JOCV), a program established in 1965 by the Japanese government under its Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency (renamed Japan International Cooperation Agency). Now on its 51st year, JOCV aimed to contribute to the reconstruction and progress of developing countries, strengthen friendship and mutual understanding between these countries and Japan, and cultivate among the Japanese themselves the values of volunteerism, self-reliance, and a broad, cross-cultural understanding of other nations.
Japanese volunteers, aged 20 to 39, are screened, matched to the needs of countries where they are deployed, trained in the language and culture of the host country, monitored in their field performance, and given post-assignment support in terms of career counseling and job placement on their return to Japan. For two years, volunteers live in their assigned local communities, learn and speak the local language, share Japanese knowledge while respecting local customs, and carry out activities of socioeconomic improvement with an emphasis on building self-reliance and mutual understanding. Living, working, and thinking together with the local community are the core principles of the volunteer experience.
The program started in 1965 with five volunteers who were sent to Laos, and then expanded its reach to Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other countries. As of 2015, 40,997 volunteers, close to half of them women, had been sent to 88 countries, with the greatest numbers going to countries in Asia and Africa. Areas of volunteer work span 190 fields of specialization in education, social welfare, health care, environmental sustainability, agriculture, manufacturing, public works, sports, and governance. Significantly, over time more experienced senior volunteers, and short-term deployments of less than one year were included.
In Laos, Japanese volunteers assisted a provincial handicraft center in the design and marketing of products in a project aimed at reducing the villagers’ reliance on poppy farming. In Ghana, a volunteer who worked with Toyota in Japan helped locals with on-the-job training in automotive repair and a car assembly shop. In Bangladesh, a succession of a hundred volunteers over a ten-year period improved the preventive polio vaccination rate and eradicated polio and filariasis in the country. In the Philippines, volunteers teamed up with local teachers in developing teaching materials and organizing programs to foster interest in science among young Filipinos. These are a few of thousands of examples of the myriad arenas of interaction in which young Japanese men and women voluntarily immersed themselves in other cultures and helped people and communities.
The work of JOCV volunteers improved lives, induced behavioral change, and transferred knowledge and skills to partners and communities in many countries. At the same time, their local immersion enriched them with an experience they brought back to Japan. “Alumni” JOCV volunteers have become leaders in volunteerism and development work, thus deepening and widening the spheres of cultural understanding in Japan itself.
For many, big infrastructure projects are the most visible signs of bilateral development partnerships, but the kind of people-to-people interaction that JOCV volunteers represent is the most humane and meaningful form of international cooperation. In the 1960s, young Hidekazu Kumano lived in Benguet, Philippines, working with farmers to grow thousands of mulberry trees. For decades after, he maintained his friendships with people in Benguet, saying: “From working with communities, I learned the value of being a human being, that I could develop my capacity to accept diversity without losing my core ideas.”
In electing the JAPAN OVERSEAS COOPERATION VOLUNTEERS to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes the volunteers for their idealism and spirit of service in advancing the lives of communities other than their own, demonstrating over five decades that it is indeed when people live, work, and think together that they lay the true foundation for peace and international solidarity.
