Tokyo 2020 Opens Volunteer Recruitment

(ATR) Tokyo 2020 organizers deny that they are putting pressure on sponsors to recruit volunteers. But they say sponsors will be an important source of help for the Games.

Registration for Tokyo 2020 volunteers opened Sept. 26 with the organizing committee seeking to fill 80,000 spots. An additional 30,000 volunteers will be recruited by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to assist in managing the flow of the 2020 Olympics.

Organizers have expressed confidence in the recruitment process, despite multiple polls showing a lack of enthusiasm to volunteer.Last month, a satirical post criticizing the volunteer process by a student at Waseda University went viral. The postcriticized the Olympics as a billion dollar endeavorthat promotes unpaid labor to function.

Tokyo 2020 says it expects that many volunteers will be drawn from students at the universities in Tokyo.

Earlier this year the 2019 Rugby World Cup said it received a "record," number of volunteer applications for its 10,000 available spots. Another survey by theSasakawa Sports Foundation suggested up to 10 million people in Japan were interested in possibly volunteering for Tokyo 2020.

Japan’s corporate sector is expected to be another pool of volunteers.Earlier this month the Nikkan Gendai reported that Tokyo 2020 sponsor Fujitsu had plans to recruit around 300 volunteers for the Games. The report said that there were around 2,000 individuals requesting to be a volunteer for the Games. With 45 domestic partners for Tokyo 2020, the report said that if each company sent 300 volunteers, 13,500 could be recruited

Tokyo 2020 spokesperson Masa Takaya tellsATR that organizers had spoken with sponsor companies to explain the volunteer program. Tokyo 2020 then "asked [companies] to circulate the details to their employees who are interested in participating," according to Takaya.

In explanations to the companies Tokyo 2020 gave a "rough idea of the numbers," of volunteers that it expects to recruit. Takaya disputed the notion of quotas in domestic partners, saying if anyone wants to be a volunteer would have to submit to the process.

"Even if employees of a sponsor company apply to be Games volunteers, they have to go through the same individual application process as everyone else," Takaya said in a statement.

"We will try to match their requested area and/or role with available areas and roles at the Tokyo 2020 Games, but cannot guarantee to accommodate everyone. Tokyo 2020 has reaffirmed this aspect of the Volunteer Program with sponsor companies."

A spokesperson for Fujitsu, told ATR that there was "no policy about volunteering" for Tokyo 2020 in the company, and that the company has "not made an agreement with Tokyo 2020 to provide volunteers".

"Nonetheless, we have been granted opportunities to volunteer as we aim to contribute to the success of the event," Atsuki Hirano, Fujitsu spokesperson, said in a statement.

Hirano said in a followup statement that the company is "encouraging," the Tokyo 2020 volunteer program, but there is "no set number for Fujitsu employees to volunteer" for the Games.

"The organization of Tokyo 2020 has not specifically provided the number of volunteers from Fujitsu, but they have continued to encourage all sponsoring companies to contribute to the event," Hirano added.

ATR attempted to contact employees of Tokyo 2020 sponsors to see how companies were encouraging people to volunteer for the Games. No employees would speak about the process on the record, and only one said, through a friend, that they had encountered no pressure from employers to volunteer.

Deadline to apply to volunteer comes in early December. . From January to July 2019 organizers will send out information about orientations that potential volunteers must attend. In September 2019 volunteers will be notified if they are accepted and will begin training the next month. By March 2020 volunteers will be notified of their assignments.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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