The Shizuoka Method of Job Support

: Semi-Welfare and Semi-Employment to De-Welfare and De-Employment

Abstract

Japan has suffered from a long economic downturn which has severed many persons from conventional social institutions such as households, the government or employment. We call this phenomenon of displacement from the conventional safety net “muenka” in Japanese. “Mu” means loss, “en” means conventional ties, and “ka” means change of conditions. How we can help those who have lost contact with the rest of society ?In this paper, I briefly report on the activities of the Youth Job Development Support Network of Shizuoka （hereafter, YJDSNS）, which has been active for 15 years in Shizuoka Prefecture. The focus is on its recent efforts to overcome “muenka” by reorganizing communities.

YJDSNS was established in 2002 to help youth who had difficulty in finding and keeping work due to the economic recession and harsh working conditions prevalent in Japanese workplaces. YJDSNS has recently changed its policy, and now focuses not only on assisting individuals （＝those who are in trouble）, but also re-organizing local communities as mutual aid entities so that community members can help one another. Today, YJDSNS is driven by the idea of “commoning” to recognize our community as a commons, and it relies on the concept of community organizing to promote commoning.