The act of soul searching, or jibun sagashi in Japanese, can have negative connotations, but at the same time, the act of searching for oneself cannot be condemned. This paper highlights, through literature reviews, how volunteer activities have a close connection with the discussion of finding oneself. By juxtaposing volunteer work and soul searching, two critical points became clear: (1) engaging in utilitarian work only for the purpose of gaining self-satisfaction may not be productive in solving the bigger issues, and (2) traveling to a foreign country to partake in volunteer work can be perceived as mere escapism. In this paper, I examine the case of eco-touristic treeplanting projects in the Chinese Inner Mongolia, examining the relationship among the participants, program officers, and local people and arguing that contemporary youths have a sense of a “plural self” when creating narratives about themselves. This ethnographic work also suggests a correlation between the positive “feed-forward” method and reciprocating compliments and positive energy among the people involved in the treeplanting projects. In conclusion, this paper proposes a “half-backstitch” model with an aim to improve the quality of volunteer work among youths in Japan, utilizing metaphors for creating new meanings to the cause and contributing to the decision-making process.

View full abstract

The international society has focused on Afghanistan since multiple acts of terror of 9.11. It has provided the aid for reconstruction work to Afghanistan, which had been under conflicts for more than 20 years. This thesis will be considered the possibility of international collaboration by the civil society by explaining the case of JICA training course for female teachers in Afghanistan. This course was especially supported by five women's universities, which were established women's university consortium. It was succeeded by collaborating with women's universities, ministry of education, culture, science, technology and JICA. Through these activities, there are some findings and changes from the university, staffs, students, who were not interested in the international collaboration until then. Thus this thesis will be presented two points. One is examined some issues and vision for ODA activities. Another is mentioned the necessity for international collaboration is “possibility of network and resources of civil society” and “assimilation of passion for civil society and national aid policy”.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the logic of an international non-governmental organization ( INGO ), whose local affiliate in Tokyo passed through. With the recent trend toward professionalized activity of non-governmental organization ( NGO ), this INGO is now widely agreed worldwide. Members in Tokyo office have felt somewhat out of place with supporting the INGO’s project, even though they all agree with what it does. In that case, why do they bother with supporting it? In response, structure analysis would generally explain that the local affiliate wants to be involved in decision-making process, which is worth supporting the project. However, this structure analysis explanation is on democratic premise that members always concern about having voice evenly. Therefore, whichever concernment they have, as long as they feel discomfort in supporting the INGO's project, the structure analysis interprets it as an expansion of their voice. In this paper, an attempt will be made to understand the local affiliate's logic of dilemma about supporting the INGO's project, while focusing not on how much voice they want to expand but on how they want to be in the activity.

View full abstract

This report attempts to describe what and how students at my class learned by volunteering at the facility “Hisayama Ryouiku-En” for mentally and physically handicapped critically. My students gradually get used to the clients there and start understanding them. Some of the students were even able to deepen their insights toward the handicapped. That is, even the handicapped are the same as us, and we do not have to treat them as “different”. Even though they have some difficulties in moving and thinking, we just need to assist them only in that manner. Thus, students have learned, “Any person is worth living”, and “Any person lives together by assisting each other”.

View full abstract