Japan Volunteers Organization

2016 Ramon Magsaysay Awards

MANILA, Philippines - Back in the 1960s, Japanese volunteer Hidekazu Kumano lived in Benguet and worked with Filipino farmers to grow thousands of mulberry trees.

For Hidekazu, it was a friendship that he didn’t think would last for five decades. He said the experience was something that brought joy and meaning to his life.

“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,” said Hidekazu, one of the thousands of volunteers of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Established in 1965 by the Japanese government under its Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency (renamed Japan International Cooperation Agency), JOCV aims to contribute to the reconstruction and progress of developing countries.

JOVC is one of the six recipients of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award, honoring leadership in solving society’s burdensome problems.

For many organizations, 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.

The Ramon Magsaysay Foundation lauded the volunteers “for their idealism and spirit of service in advancing the lives of communities other than their own and for laying the true foundation for peace and international solidarity.”

The JOCV also aims to 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.

Like Hidekazu, Japanese volunteers, young adults aged 20 to 39, are screened and matched to the needs of countries where they are assigned. They are also trained in the language and culture of the host country, monitored in their field performance and given post assignment support in terms of career counselling and job placement on their return to Japan.

For two years, volunteers live in their assigned local communities, share Japanese knowledge while respecting local customs. The volunteers also organize activities that hone and develop the locals’ self-reliance. 

The program, which started in 1965 with just five volunteers, was first set up in Laos, and then to Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries. According to last year’s data, there are now 40,997 volunteers who have been assigned to 88 countries, a majority of which are in Asia and Africa. Half of the volunteers are women. Areas of volunteer work include education, social welfare, health care, environmental sustainability, agriculture, manufacturing, public works, sports and governance.

In Laos, Japanese volunteers assisted a provincial handicraft center in the design and marketing of products in a program that aims to lessen the livelihood reliance of the community on poppy farming.

In war-torn 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 filiariasis in the country.

In the Philippines, volunteers worked with teachers in developing teaching materials and initiated programs to foster interest in science among young Filipinos.

The work of JOCV volunteers improved lives, motivated people to change for the better and transferred skills to partners and communities in many countries. At the same time, the experience taught Japanese volunteers to be leaders in development work, deepening and widening the spheres of cultural understanding in Japan itself.

The other Magsaysay awardees this year are Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales (Philippines), Dompet Dhuafa (Indonesia), Bezwada Wilson (India), Thodur Madabusi Krishna (India, for emerging leadership) and the Vientiane Rescue (Laos). They will be conferred their awards at a ceremony on Aug. 31.