City Volunteers for the Tokyo 2020 Games in Chiba

You can find the general information and how active the city voluntters called “City Cast Chiba” played their role at Tokyo 2020 Games in Chiba on this website.

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• What are “City Volunteers”?

• Breakdown of City Cast Chiba

• Volunteer Journey

• Volunteer Services during the Games

• Photo Gallery

What are “City Volunteers”?

Active volunteers were needed for the success of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

There are mainly two types of volunteer: Games Volunteers who support the event and the competition operations, and City Volunteers who serve the visitors by providing tourism, transport and Games-related information throughout the games’ period.

In 2018, we recruited 3,000 City Volunteers called "City Cast Chiba" who supported the Tokyo 2020 Games held in Chiba prefecture, one of the host venues of 8 events. The Tokyo 2020 Games were held without an audience and thus, all activities were changed into "remote volunteering". City Cast Chiba volunteers were very passionate about the success of the Games and worked together to convey their warm hospitality to the people of the world.

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Breakdown of City Cast Chiba

Number of Volunteers

Recruitment (July, 2018)	3,000
Applied (December, 2018)	6,500
Registered (March, 2020)	2,800(Hiring of those who attended standardized training)
Finally registered (April, 2021)	1,400 (After confirmation of intention to participate)
Engaged numbers of volunteers during games (From July to October, 2021)	327

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Duties/Activities

Provide tourism information, transportation information and Games-related information at major train stations in Chiba, stations nearest to Games venues or locations on the route to Games venues, and at Narita International Airport terminals. (Unfortunately, those initially planned activities were canceled due to the Games being held without an audience.)

As an alternative, they worked on “remote volunteering” such as virtual tours, seeing off athletes via avatar robots or online, writing and translating newsletters, etc.

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Volunteering Areas

Volunteers are registered to work for 5 areas in Chiba Prefecture: Chiba City Venue Area, Ichinomiya Town Venue Area, Narita International Airport, Narita City Area, and Urayasu City Area.

 

1. Chiba City Venue Area

3 Olympic events and 4 Paralympic events were held in this area. Volunteers were expected to work throughout the games’ period in 2020.

2. Ichinomiya Town Venue Area

Surfing was held in this area from July 25 to 27, 2021. Volunteers were expected to work during the period of the competition and related events held in the surrounding are.

3. Narita International Airport

Many spectators and tourists were supposed to arrive through Narita International Airport as the gateway to Japan. Volunteers were expected to work throughout the games’ period in 2020.

4. Narita City Area

As the nearest and most convenient area to Narita International Airport, this area was supposed to be also visited by many tourists and volunteers were expected to work throughout the games’ period.

5. Urayasu City Area

With a number of hotels nearby, many spectators and tourists were supposed to stay in this area, thus the volunteers were expected to support them by providing transport information to travel around the Chiba and Tokyo area throughout the games’ period.

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Volunteer Journey

Since 2017:

• Many kinds of volunteer seminars and workshops were held to raise awareness about volunteering and for skill building.

2018

• Jun 30: Release of Application Guideline and opening of recruitment site

   

• Sep 2018 - Dec 2018: Application

2019

• Jan 2019- Mar 2019：Document screening

• April 2019 – Jul 2019: Interviews and orientation

• Oct 2019 - Mar 2020: Standardized training

2020

• Mar 2020：Tokyo 2020 Games postponed to 2021
• Jul 2020 - Feb 2021: Online Meetup, group study session

2021

• From Jun 2021: Area trainings
• Jul 2021 – October 2021: Volunteer service (remote activities)

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Volunteer Services During the Games Period

Online Virtual Tour

The virtual tours by City Cast Chiba were designed to help people, who had planned to take part in local tours or excursions in areas around the Olympics and Paralympics venues, enjoy alternative experiences.

Scheduled tours have all ended. We would like to express our gratitude for the participation from many international guests. The report in Japanese is available here.

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Seeing athletes off via avatar robot or online, giving a hospitality gift.

At Narita Airport, City Cast Chiba saw off athletes and games staff via avatar robots and online for four days from the end of August to the beginning of September.

Hospitality goods made by citizens of Chiba were displayed at the booth set up to see athletes off, and the athletes and other members of the Games took them home as souvenirs.

The report in Japanese is available here.

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Volunteer Newletters

The newsletters written by City Cast Chiba were published 5 times throughout the games period, reporting their volunteer activities from mid-July to September.

The summary of the newsletters are also released in English and some other languages.

Numbers translated in English and other languages

Links for each language are available from the following Japanese site.

• Vol.1: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Korean
• Vol.2: English, Spanish, Chinese
• Vol.3: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean
• Vol.4: English, Spanish, Chinese
• Vol.5: Coming soon

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SNS

The City Volunteer Management Office has provided timely updates of City Cast Chiba and information useful for volunteer activities.

City Cast Chiba disseminated official information and posted on SNS to cheer on athletes, send out games-related information, and promote Chiba Prefecture.

• Official Twitter @2020chibavlntr「Tokyo 2020 Ciba City Volunteers」（Open from July to December 2021)
• Official Instagram: 2020chibavlntr「Tokyo 2020 Ciba City Volunteers」（Open from July to December 2021）

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Youth Experience Program

The program was designed for junior high school to senior high school aged youth to liven up the Tokyo 2020 Games with City Cast Chiba. The activities were all conducted in the form of an online workshop in August 2021 since the all volunteering services by City Cast Chiba had changed to remote volunteering.  

The report in Japanese is available here.

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Other Reports

You can check other reports regarding City Cast Chiba.

 

• 【Report】All Chiba “Omotenashi” Symposium and City Volunteer Recruitment Briefing Session, held in Sep 2018 （Japanese only）
• 【Report】Volunteer Symposium toward Tokyo 2020 held in Sep 2018 (Japanese only）

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Photo Gallery

Click here to check the photo gallery of the City Volunteers.  

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