The present thesis investigated, using intensive fieldwork, three projects that were implemented by an international non-governmental organization (NGO) named the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to promote personal and social development for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Khartoum State, Sudan.The projects pioneered in the country where almost all projects by NGOs had been extended for emergency relief and rehabilitation, not for long-term development.
　　　In the first project named the Capacity Building and Organizational Capacity Assessment Project, the IRC provided workshops in which staff of national NGOs, i.e., Sudanese NGOs, participated to improve their capacities that were required to extend better services to IDPs.In the second project, named the FAIR project, the IRC focused on university graduates among IDPs and trained them to be leaders who were expected to perform educational functions in capacity building, peace building, and gender awareness in IDP communities.In the third project, named the Sudanese Youth Peace Building Initiative, the IRC attempted to transform the culture of war into a culture of peace by providing training sessions in which young people, including IDPs, participated to learn how problems, in politics or in everyday life, could be solved in a collaborative, not antagonistic, way.
　　　Analyzing each project from the viewpoints of adapting learning, we suggested that the IRC evolved to better the IDPs' life, a practical necessity.The path of evolution was demonstrated by an increase of participation of IDPs in the implementation process of a project.Evolution was also observed in the way in which the IRC expanded their scope of view to reach a point where long-term and large-scale cultural transformations could be pursued in the third project.It was expected (and hoped) that this collaborative relationship, grown among international NGOs, national NGOs, IDPs, and, Sudanese people, might change distrust into trust between international NGOs and the Sudanese government.

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　　　The present article introduces a dialogue between two authors, one of whom is the first author of the study, “Relief activities of a Chinese non-governmental organization for the victims of the Sichuan huge earthquake in 2008" (Chen & Sugiman, 2010).As first author of the present article, I posed four questions about the NGO in the study, Disaster Preparedness Center (DPC), to Ms Chen, the second author of this article.Since that time, we have exchanged discussions via e-mail for about 3 months.The first set of questions was also forwarded to the DPC, and we received a response from one of its staff members.
　　　First, we discussed the relationship between the DPC and the Chinese government.We confirmed that the DPC had been active with the resources of the national and local governments based on its established relationship with them.We concluded that Chinese NGOs face difficulty in further development due to huge gap in resources and power with Chinese governments, while Western NGOs claiming to stand for democracy also had potential problems in purifying their advocacy.
　　　Second, the DPC's mode of operation was the issue of our discussion, especially on its rationale for withdrawal from disaster deployment.We understood that once active initiative and leadership were brought out in a community, the DPC allowed itself to withdraw.However, we also pointed out that the rationale may be interpreted as harsh by NGO members.
　　　Third, we discussed DPC's perception of survivors.Inevitably, some survivors are left out of relief efforts.The DPC, in its mission, takes care of them, provided that there are sufficient resources available.We argued that, although the scarcity of resources was a fact of grim reality, only NGOs are available to serve the survivors who are excluded by other relief efforts; otherwise, the raison d'etre of the NGO would vanish.
　　　Fourth, the current situation and future perspectives of Chinese NGOs were discussed.It was our mutual hope that they contribute to the progress of Chinese society and continue efforts to overcome current difficulties without being distracted by superficial criticisms by the media.

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　　　This study investigated how people had managed to sustain an elaborate festival named the Hakata Gion Yamagasa (Yamagasa, for short) that has been conducted in the Hakata district, a part of a large city named Fukuoka, each summer since the thirteenth century. The researchers explored how a traditional cultural ritual such as this festival can be maintained when a geographic area has undergone depopulation. In the Yamagasa, seven floats make a five kilometer race, each of which weighs about one ton and is carried on the shoulders of 26 people who appear each minute from a group of several hundred participants. The festival had traditionally been conducted by residents living in the site called Hakata, but it became difficult to sustain because the population sharply decreased after the 1970s.
　　　In this study, observations and a questionnaire were carried out in one of the seven floats named the Doi float in 2009 to find out which people participated in the festival and where they came from. As a result, we found that only 20% of the participants were residents of the Hakata district while 80% came from the other districts of Fukuoka city and from the outside of the city. Thus the festival has evolved to belong to citizens of Fukuoka city rather than residents of the Hakata district. However, residents in the Hakata district were found to play a central role without which the Yamagasa would not be possible because they have continued to participate in the festival traditions that they have known since their childhood. The festival was acknowledged as an integral part of their lives, a way of maintaining solidarity in a changing world.
　　　At the same time, it was obvious that the festival would not be sustained without participation of those from outside of the Hakata district. These people were found to be attracted by the human relationships and the sense of achievement that could be gained through participating in the festival. More than a few people from the outside had the same important hierarchical positions as people from the inside enjoyed, and shared several roles for carrying the float with residents in the district.
　　　We analyzed when, why and what were the characteristics of people from the outside who started participating in the festival. Most of them were young adults, in their 20 to 30s who started participating several years ago after being encouraged to join either from their acquaintances or by their own volition. We propose that additional exploration should be undertaken to learn how the real taste of the festival can be transmitted to those living outside the district who have not formerly participated, and are interested in taking part and how they can be further attracted to this vibrant and colorful festival.

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　　　Two different unique activities, i.e., caring children in a forest by a group of residents and treating children who have mental retardation or pervasive developmental disorders by a non-profit organization, were investigated by a long-term participant observation and they were discussed depending on the same theoretical framework in which the bodily interchange between experts and children was focused on. By this, we tried to develop an inter-local viewpoint for the two different localities by combining two different descriptions (observational language) of each activity with the same theoretical language.
　　　First, the activities of Walt Kindergarten in a mountainous area called Chizu, Tottori-Prefecture, Japan were described by showing several episodes of the second author's experiences. In the kindergarten, child-care was always carried out in a forest.Teachers and children faced nature side by side without taking a hierarchical relationship. The teachers rejected a choice between appreciating and depreciating a child but tried to accept each child as he/she was. Such attitudes of the teachers looked changing parents so that they acknowledged the diversity of growth of children and acquired the patience to wait until children could do something new by themselves.
　　　Second, the activities of a non-profit organization called the Asile in Uji city, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan to treat developmentally-handicapped children were reported using participant observation and interviews with their mothers by the first author. In the Asile, therapists tried to accept children unconditionally without any preconceptions that the children were handicapped. The children rushed into arms of the therapists and were treated with therapy that combined physical and psychological modalities. Such relationships between therapists and children changed the mothers' attitude toward the disorders from negation into acceptance.
　　　It was suggested that the two activities were characterized in common by the relationship between experts and children in which the both were interchanged with each other like becoming a single body.Also, new meanings of child and child raising emerged from such a relationship and brought about a change in attitude of the parents.

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