No - Spectator Olympics Leave Volunteers In Limbo
Many volunteers recruited to help visitors to the Tokyo Olympics are finding themselves without duties now that the Games lack spectators at most of the venues, due to the coronavirus.
The Tokyo Metropolitan government has canceled all voluntary activities initially assigned to volunteers it had recruited. They had been asked to work outside the venues to help visitors to the Games.
The metropolitan government now plans to assign other activities to volunteers living in Tokyo. They include patrolling the city's waterfront district where an Olympic flame platform has been installed to make sure visitors are observing social distancing.
A number of volunteers were seen in the district on Saturday, the day after the opening of the Olympics.
It is still unclear whether all volunteers who applied for the new job will be able to participate.
Volunteers recruited by the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee are in a similar situation. They were initially asked to work at Games venues.
A volunteer from the city of Osaka says she made full preparations for the position, taking an English conversation course and scheduling a 20-day paid leave from her corporate work during the Games.
She says she received no reply from the organizing committee after being notified of plans to downscale the voluntary activities. She adds she finally received an e-mail message on Saturday morning, saying the panel will contact her only when it has a job to offer.
The woman told NHK that it is difficult for her to just wait without knowing when and whether she will have any job at all.
She adds she is afraid many other volunteers are experiencing a similar state of uncertainty.
She noted her thorough preparations as a volunteer over the past seven years since Tokyo was selected to host the Games. She said it would be a pity if the Games end without her wearing a volunteers' uniform even once.
Another volunteer living in Tokyo's Machida City was initially assigned to help spectators at the Games venues.
But just recently, the organizing committee asked him instead to help members of the media from overseas.
He says he hasn't received any training or information on how he should perform his new job. So he says he is trying to prepare on his own by collecting relevant data from fellow volunteers.
He told NHK that he believes there is growing frustration among many volunteers over the way the management of voluntary assignments as well as the Games themselves have been carried out hastily at the last minute.
He says he hopes the organizers will provide the information volunteers need for closer cooperation as they are not supposed to be at odds with each other.