Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (青年海外協力隊 seinen kaigai kyōryokutai) [1] is a system of dispatching Japanese volunteers overseas operated by JICA. The offers include wide range of fields as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, education, health, etc. and more than 120 types of businesses. More than 30000 volunteers have ever been dispatched to more than 80 countries in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Oceania. The recruitment is held on April to May, and October to November every year. Japanese citizens aged from 20 to 39 are eligible for the application. It is commonly known by the acronym "JOCV".
Contents |
Countries to be supplied are the followings:
| Region | Countries of Dispatch |
|---|---|
| Asia | Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, People's Republic of China, Mongolia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan |
| Middle East | Syria, Yemen, and Jordan |
| Africa | Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Cameroun, Gabon, Niger, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa |
| The Caribbean | Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Commonwealth of Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines |
| Central and South America | Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay[2], and Argentina |
| Oceania | Papua New Guinea, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Tonga |
The following types of businesses are applied for the volunteers.
The health checkups on the first-stage test are self-pay. But if some applicants are directed to return to clinic by JICA, JICA will pick up the medical expenses.
Even if one passes the required technical examination, he or she can sometimes be rejected, because his or her technical backgrounds might be judged not to match for any requests from the countries of any choices. Therefore, there are some cases of being hired after some repeated examinations. There are also some other cases of hiring applicants of low technical capabilities, or rejecting those of high technical capabilies.
In terms of health check, the required medical standard is strict because serious health problems can occur in developing countries to even one who can live a healthy life in Japan. The required medical standard depends on what country they are dispatched to, because the medical levels vary from country to country.
The second-stage test result has 3 status 'passed', 'rejected', and 'registered'. As previously explained, some of applicants with high technical capability and without matching for requests can be 'registered'. They can be promoted to be 'passed' when some successful applicants turn the requests down to leave a hole, or some countries make more requests out of the recruitment period.
This is a system of dispatch of the volunteers overseas in keeping their own tenures in offices or as public officials. Whether to apply this system is not to be forced. If applicants who are employed in their offices are not going to leave, they should gain approval from the offices before their own applications. Failing of that can make them cancel to be dispatched or resign from their offices. In terms of officials in municipal organizations, the organizations require to accept this system. Applying this system, 80% of base salary for one employee as upper limit is covered by JICA while he or she is being dispatched overseas as the volunteer.
If applicants passes the final-stage test, they will start to spend 65 days training as JOCV members in either of 2 training centers: one in Komagane City, Nagano Prefecture and another in Nihonmatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture. Which training center they are assigned to depends on what country they are going to be dispatched to. If they join JOCV after leaving their own offices, the period of unemployment benefit payments can be expanded of the day when they start training.
Basic Trainings
(vaccination times - once a week)
Food costs and lodging expenses are free while training. As charges of courses, 50,000 yen for one month is also supplied. The trainers are allowed to go out of the training centers after evening of Mon-Sat and on Sunday, but staying out overnight is allowed only on Sat-Sun. The volunteers are divided into 4 groups by the timing of dispatch. 1st group members are dispatched on June, 2nd group on September, 3rd group on December, and 4th group on March.
They are dispatched for 2 years in principle and only 1 year is expandable. Living expenses, healthcare costs, and round-trip travel expenses are supplied from JICA. The living expenses supplied from JICA depend on prices of the country of dispatch and are fluid. They are dispatched without their own families.
If the volunteer members have their own tenures in offices or are enrolled at colleges or universities, they return to their offices, colleges, or universities just after the flight back. In cases of joining JOCV just after graduating colleges or universities, or after leaving their offices and without job tenures, JICA provides them with career counseling services. Nevertheless, not so many Japanese private companies recognize their careers as JOCV members, thus it is not so easy for them to get their desired jobs. But some public offices or special governmental corporations tend to recognize the careers. Living in developing countries often makes them change in their senses of values or conceptions of lives, thus some get unadaptable to Japanese corporate cultures and the others take advantage of their new senses in international companies or organizations. If trying to join JOCV without a guarantee of employment, they should be mentally prepared to carve their own paths. Some people start working as volunteer-control workers, specialists, or contract workers of JICA.
Essentially JOCV should be operated under requests from governments of developing countries, and aim to provide contributions in personnel. Nonetheless, the volunteers are sometimes dispatched as assistance projects in JICA's regional offices. In that case, they are often faced with disagreements among government officials , regional officials, and headquarters officials of JICA. So they have often difficulty getting along with them. On the other hand, they are often unable to do their good enough jobs and sometimes complain about their activities to shorten their terms, because of inefficient acceptance or handover mechanisms, which are very common in developing countries. Consequently, JOCV members are expected to be flexible enough to work around unexpected circumstances.
While some people who possess high knowledge and skills are dispatched for 2 years, their offices make vacancies, thus many companies or offices are not cooperative to let their employees join JOCV. However, the returned JOCV members can assist foreign students or apprentices and make connections with the countries of dispatch, which is also expected to help to promote international exchanges.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||