In order to consider the future of voluntary action, this paper analyzed the process of one social entrepreneur in a disability policy. Bengt Nirje is the practitioner who conceptualized “the Normalization principle” and brought the global paradigm shift to the disability policy: of those days 1970’s. Those days, while the exclusion in with a total institution was considered to be “Normal”, it was in the state of an “immature system” without any other support policy. In order to change the problematic situation, he visited those institutions repeatedly and sensed the essence of the problems from the field. He discovered the essence of “the Normalization principle” while contrasting with the life with a “normal” average citizen from sensing from the field. Through telling comparison of both lives, he crystallized the concept, made a prototype called eight principles, and spread them all over the world. This process was able to be regarded as the practice of the social entrepreneur who brought about the social change, when interpreted in a complexity system model or Theory U. How should it be with the future of voluntary action which fights against “immature system” today? The hint has been held through the re-interpretation of Nirje’s practice.

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Recently, volunteer activities have been widely spread throughout Japan. However, because the standard regulation for safety management of volunteer activities in Japanese hospitals was not established, many of them feel trouble and difficulty when they introduce and manage the volunteer workers and their activities. Coping with this problem, in our hospital, we constructed the three-layer-direction system which was structured by the committee of quality management to work out the policy, the working group for volunteer services to carry on the projects and the volunteer coordinators for practical task. This system plays a role in the function of the volunteer directors in US. Additionally, we defined the significance of volunteer activities in hospital to make sense of the irreplaceable existence in each other with “Co-Presence”. Then, in this context, we pointed out the three potentials of volunteer activities; one is the possibility to activate the relationship in the hospital-community, second one is the will to act against the suppressed power of the institutions, and the last one is the ability to explore the new way extend outward of the framework of the institutions. Furthermore, we suggested that to create the system of support-services for volunteer activities was most important and critical for the purpose of continuous quality improvement and total quality management.

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Since human behavioral values and consciousness have been greatly changing now and human bonds in each region are becoming weaker and weaker, we have to create a “convivial society”, where the different people coming from various background can support each other to respect human dignity and to recognize the significance of “being”. In such a society, the new idea needs to be introduced especially for the volunteers on the basis of public philosophy. Starting from this concern, I tried in my paper first to examine the public-philosophical theory of “Empowering the Public by Animating Individuals” i.e. “Kasshi-Kaiko” in Japanese concerning the relationship between an individual and society. Thereafter, I classified the features of volunteer styles and described their actual state of volunteers as well as their activities according to my observation. Third, I tried to formulate the findings of questionnaire survey and an ideal image of the volunteer’s life style. In conclusion, I proposed an ideal volunteer leaders’ model of “Kasshi-kaiko Styled” volunteers who are rich of civic virtues and willing to engage in the public activities to improve the quality of volunteer works. It is remarkable that presenting this model will be of great help in contribution to the task.

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Many universities in Japan recently have institutionalized support for students with disabilities. In these programs, how can student volunteers be involved? In this paper, the roles of student volunteers are discussed by describing the case of a private university. Poole Gakuin University developed a program to support students with disabilities in 2002. In the program, the paid student assistant system was organized to extend academic support for such students. However, it has been found that the students with physical challenges require additional support by student volunteers in non-academic aspects of their school life, while students with developmental disorders need supplementary support to develop their social skills. Members of the latter group often do not recognize their own needs and tend not to use the institutionalized support. The expected support differs according to the type of difficulties faced by the students. Thus, individual needs should always be identified and understood so that appropriate assistance can be provided. Moreover, it should be noted that the paid support students system alone is insufficient to meet the varying needs of students, and student volunteers play significant roles. It must be recognized that the support for students with disabilities itself is a voluntary action.

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