March ２０００― 185 ―

１）

The Kobe Earthquake and the Renaissance of Volunteerism in Japan ＊Shigeo Tatsuki＊＊This paper deals with three topics that are related to the re-emergence of volunteerism in Japan after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. The first topic is in the form of a “veteran’s
field story”. It will provide readers with a sense of what is foreseeable and what is controllable during the emergency response period. It is reasonable to assume that if one
knows what is happening and also knows what will follow next, one will feel much morein control of his or her own situation. This paper attempts to describe what volunteer
management was like at a time of an urban mega-disaster, which incapacitated the infrastructure of metropolitan areas in one of the most advanced industrialized societies in theworld.
The second topic is how the earthquake literally changed the way people constructed
the reality of the society. Faced with the sudden emergence of an extreme number of volunteers, the mass media coined the term “Year One of Volunteerism”. It could be argued,
however, that 1995 was not the “Year One”, but more accurately a “Renaissance” of volunteerism in Japanese society.
The third topic is an attempt to provide an historic account of the socio-economic contexts in which the earthquake galvanized the transformation of Japan into a country empowered by a civil society. This paper aims to convey that although Japan is a non-JudeoChristian nation, it nevertheless shares the common language of civil society, active citizenship and community involvement in preparation for the next millennium.

A Veteran’s Story
It is important to be imaginative and creative as a volunteer manager during a megadisaster. Literally tens and thousands of new, eager volunteers come to help out disastervictims everyday. At the same time, the welcoming volunteer managers are hopelessly andconstantly understaffed. However, a disaster or mega-disaster is a moment in which vulnerability on the side of management can be reframed as one of its strengths. If so many
people line up at the volunteer reception table, the first person in the line can be asked tohelp receive the volunteers behind him or her. This person can be taught how to register
the necessary information and how to direct the applicant where to go next. During a disaster, there is no time for the luxury of volunteer training. Therefore, volunteer managers
have to count on the maturity and self-sufficiency of the volunteering individuals. Thus
*Key Words: Volunteerism, Kobe Earthquake, Disaster volunteer management, Civil Society in Japan, Civicmindedness**Professor, School of Sociology, Kwansei Gakuin University
１）Portions of this paper were originally presented at invited speeches on two occasions. One presentation
was given at the International Association of Volunteer Efforts World Conference held at University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada on August 25th, 1998. The other speech was held at Colorado College, Colorado,
USA on July 13, 1999.

― 186 ―社 会 学 部 紀 要 第８７号

the job of managing other volunteer individuals can and should be delegated to any mature and self-sufficient individuals present.
This know-how of a Kobe-veteran was transferred to a town called Mikuni two years
after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. A Russian oil tanker, Navotka, was wrecked in the Sea
of Japan in January of 1997. 19,000 tons of spilled crude oil and the front section of theship drifted to the coast of Mikuni township in Fukui Prefecture. In response to the disaster, members from the local Junior Chamber of Commerce (JC) took responsibility for disaster volunteer management. This happened thanks to suggestions made by a couple of
Kobe veterans, who dashed to the disaster site as soon as news of the oil spilled was released. These veterans foresaw that there would be a flood of clean-up volunteers from all
across the country. They also foresaw that the sheer number of volunteers would paralyze
local township officials. Just the number alone went way beyond the capacity of local volunteer coordinators. They knew this because they went through the same flood of volunteer response themselves. However, they also knew that volunteers could manage volunteers.
As previously mentioned, if one can foresee a sequence of emerging events, one feels
much more in control of the situation. The most important message conveyed by the veteran’s story is that there were three predictable phases in disaster: 1) emergency, 2) development, and 3) termination. The tasks of volunteer managers are different at eachphase. Of those three phases, termination of the disaster relief volunteer operation must
be considered and planned for long before the emergency responses start. An end for therelief effort needs to be defined and choreographed in order to avoid staff burnout, confusion, and a sense of powerlessness during the termination phase.
Figure 1 illustrates the number of relief volunteers managed by Kwansei Gakuin Relief Volunteer Center from January 21 to April 6, 1995. In total, about 7,500 volunteers
were managed over a three-month period. This graph shows the three phases clearly. The
graph can be sliced into three parts; the first third is the emergency phase, which is characterized by a high manpower mobilization. About 200 volunteers on average engaged insupporting 14 evacuation shelters surrounding the university campus everyday in thisphase. The middle slice of the graph is the development phase. A gradual decline of workforce mobilization characterized this period. The last third is the termination phase, inwhich the work force mobilization hit rock bottom and remained low until the end.
The emergency phase is a time of excitement. People’s faces shine and everybody
shares a heroic feeling. It is natural to feel good when doing the right thing or acting on
behalf of a cause or a belief. Compassion and empathy for the disaster victims were thekey driving forces during this period. Another factor also motivated our student volunteers. In everyday life, students live in a world of “role playing” or “role taking”. In thisworld, roles are already prescribed and you are expected to follow them. However, in order to help run the evacuation shelters, each of which housed about 400 to 500 people,
they could not be “role takers”, because managers or supervisors were too busy to givethem detailed instructions of how to be a good helper in an emergency shelter. They
needed to be “role makers” during the disaster. Once the students started making roles
for themselves, they began to realize that the rules and regulations of every day life areMarch ２０００― 187 ―

Figure 1:Number of Relief Volunteers Managed by KGU Relief Volunteer Center from January 21 to April 6,1955

just the constructions of fellow human beings. That being the case, the students realizedthat rules could also be changed by the hands of fellow human beings. It is a powerfulfeeling to acknowledge being in charge of change in a society. There is a sense of connectedness to the society, of being part of the mainstream. Compassion, empathy, and role
making were the driving forces of the emergency phase.
During the emergency phase, survival, safety, and security were the main goals forrelief assistance. Accordingly, the provision of food, relief materials and a night watch
were the three major activities that our student volunteers engaged in. These activities
could be called Instrumental Work. Any disaster relief starts with an instrumental type of
help. What comes next is Interpersonal Work. Our student volunteers organized a playgroup for children, overnight camp trips, and bath-taking tours for the elderly. The bathtaking tours were most appreciated by the elderly because no gas service was available
for three months and thus no local hot water. Furthermore, bath taking is a Japanese national pastime. These were just a few examples of interpersonal work that the student
volunteers improvised as they sensed the needs of the victims.
Allowing the student volunteers to be involved in instrumental work first was very effective. Such involvement gave them opportunities for rapport building with shelter residents. Rapport is the basis of any type of interpersonal work. Therefore, once a student
was assigned to one shelter, they were encouraged to return to the same shelter for a second and third time. In doing so, volunteers gradually built rapport and initiated interpersonal types of work with residents.

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A steady volunteer turn out followed by gradual decline of work force mobilization
characterized the development phase. The number of volunteers declined mainly because
the city office recovered from the initial state of shock and established channels to provide
relief materials to temporary shelters. Accordingly, there was a sense that what the victims needed from the volunteers changed from material relief assistance to interpersonalcare and the provision of information. Thanks to the instrumental work that the center
had provided during the preceding emergency phase, the volunteers were already well accepted by the shelter residents. The next activities focussed on children and elderly during the development phase. Children and the elderly were the most vulnerable populations at the shelters and unsurprisingly requested volunteer help the most.
For children, our volunteers started shelter-based playgroups. For the elderly, we
started the “apple girls” project. One day, the volunteer center received a truck full of apples donated from northern prefecture producers. Those apples were sent to shelters but
not so many people were keen about eating apples in cold school gymnasiums. There wassome concern that those apples would go to waste. At that time, one of the volunteers suggested that if a young co-ed student were to sit next to an elderly person and peel apples
for them, the apples would be consumed fast. With that thought in mind, apple girls weresent to shelters. However, later that day, it was discovered that those Northern apples
were too hard for the elderly to eat even after they were peeled. That was the end of thestory, or so it was thought that day.
The following day after the apple girls attempt, the Kobe YMCA held a screening interview for possible financial donations from the International Rotary Club Kobe Disaster
Relief Fund committee. As part of the explanation of PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder and ways of dealing with PTSD prevention, it seemed appropriate to describe the attempts of the special project team called apple girls. The committee members were so impressed by the story of indigenous lay counselors who used apples as a means of initiating
conversation and allaying the suspicions of the elderly that the committee decided to give
the KGU volunteer center quite a sizable donation.
A few days later, however, it was a shock to learn that the name “apple girls” appeared on the editorial page headline of a local Kobe newspaper. The editorial article asserted the importance of PTSD prevention and used the “apple girl story” as a prime example of how it could be done by volunteers. When the center staff volunteers saw the article they decided to start the lay counselor project as described in the article. The staff
recruited educational psychology and social work major students. Then, a social work professor provided a half-day training session for the apple girls. Thus, a few days after theeditorial article, the apple girls turned into a full reality. For about six weeks until theend of March, under the supervision of the social work professor, they offered lay counseling services at each of the 14 shelters that the center supported.
Inspired by the apple girls, a couple of theology school professors started their own
shelter visits carrying a coffee maker and china cups. They called themselves “Coffee
Shop Shalom” and practiced preventative counseling mainly to homemakers and unemployed men.
There is good reason to believe that those indigenous helpers really alleviated the in-March ２０００― 189 ―

cidence of PTSD among the sheltered people they visited. During the development phaseof a disaster, volunteer lay counselors emphasized that disaster stress related symptoms
such as sleeplessness, irritability, jumpiness and flashbacks were simply normal responses
to an abnormal situation. The volunteers also emphasized the fact that the victims had
managed to survive because they had activated their own strengths, their so-called internal and external coping resources. This approach contrasted to volunteer professionalcounselors and clinical psychologists that visited many of the same shelters. Not so many
shelter residents opted for professional services in comparison to their response to the apple girls. Receiving professional services was viewed as an admission of vulnerability
whereas conversing with apple girls was unthreatening and affirming.
It is always tempting to dash out to a new disaster because of the high spirits and heroic feelings that are part of the emergency phase experience. However, if one realizes
that it will be necessary to go through the termination phase that enthusiasm quickly
wanes. The termination phase is characterized by a further decline of the work force. At
the center, the volunteers who were still willing to come back to work, reached rock bottom during this phase. The work at the shelter became less exciting than before. For example, shelter managers and residents kept requesting for night watch volunteers untilthe very end of the volunteer operation. The residents felt safer at night if they knew that
there was some one to watch over them. In other words, the residents did not require action but the mere presence of the volunteers.
Once a low volunteer turn out became a reality, some staff volunteers at the centerstarted feeling a sense of loss and failure. Physical and mental exhaustion was added tothis. It was obviously the time to quit but no one knew when or how to quit the volunteer
center operation. Internal conflicts arose with regard to if or when to stop the operation.
The majority of management time and energy was spent dealing with these conflicts. It
was found that the best way to deal with staff-to-staff conflict was to disclose and admit
differences in opinion regarding relief work at full staff meetings. In retrospect, open discussions and sometimes the confrontations served as a type of defusing for staff feelings(Mitchel, 1983). Staff meetings revealed that it was not the particular personalities ofgroup members but rather the nature of the ending phase itself that was causing a senseof loss and failure. The meetings also reminded the group that the end of the operation
was near and it was time to prepare for the re-entry into the world of ordinary life, a lifeof role taking. The discussions and the open confrontations in the full staff meetings were
instrumental in defusing the conflicts.
In retrospect, a lot of management time and energy could have been saved if the conditions for the termination of the operation had been decided long before the start of therelief volunteer center. For example, a low volunteer turn out could have been viewed as asign that the termination phase was starting rather than a sign of failure and powerlessness. If this had been known during March of 1995, the rest of the operation time could
have been spent in more imaginative and creative activities.

The Renaissance of Volunteerism
Reuben Nelson, a Canadian Futurologist, in his keynote speech for the 1998 World― 190 ―社 会 学 部 紀 要 第８７号

Volunteer Conference, mentioned that certain conditions allow volunteerism to grow. He
mentioned the recognition of a person as an individual and open psychological space. The
western frontier is a good example of open space where a sense of individuality exceeds
the values of tradition, authority and regulations. At the same time, the harsh environment of the frontier made individuals become inter-dependent. Here arises the essence ofvolunteerism.
For three months after the Kobe earthquake, people experienced a modern day frontier in a metropolitan area. Suddenly, they were put in a situation in which they could notcount on the city office to take care of all or even any public needs. The city office itself
had also become an earthquake victim. In this context, people learned how hard it was tosurvive as individuals, unconnected to other people. People then learned that they themselves, not city officials, could respond to public needs and that people could weave public
interests. Those three months were days of no law prescribed by an authority. Instead,people became the law. People were able to and needed to govern their own communities
during those three months without external help. In other words, people took part in role
making on a very large scale during this period.
Figure 2 is an attempt to make sense out of volunteerism in our daily lives. It depicts
a two dimensional map of social institutions. On top is the statutory or the government
body. On the bottom, is the non-governmental or voluntary body. From right to left, areFigure 2：A Cognitive Structure of Public-Private andStatutory-Volunatary Dimensions and Locationof People-based Weaving of Public Interests

public and private interests. The top right quadrant is where the government responds topublic needs by collecting tax and spending it for public interests. Going counter clock
wise, the top left is where the government takes care of private interests by providing asocial security and a social welfare net. The bottom left is where market behavior takes
place. It deals with private interests by the non-governmental business sector. Finally, thebottom right corner is where volunteerism, non-governmental and non-profit organization
activities, and philanthropy take place. Public needs are responded to by the nongovernmental voluntary sector in this domain. That is the people-based weaving of public
interests. This bottom right corner had been a blind spot for many Japanese people until
the Kobe earthquake.
The earthquake literally changed the way people constructed their reality of society.
Figure 3 illustrates how people thought prior to the earthquake. Public interests wereMarch ２０００― 191 ―

Figure 3: The View of Public Interests Prior to the Earthquake

equated with government and people were only equated with private interests. It is little
wonder that volunteerism was not viewed seriously because there was no perceived domain for a people-based weaving of public interests. In that constructed reality, public
needs had to be responded to by a statutory body, so that people could concentrate all of
their energy for profit making.
The earthquake caused a shift in the view of society, simply because the government
also became a victim and its functions were paralyzed for about three months. What happened during this time was the emergence of volunteerism all over the earthquake disaster hit frontier. For many years, government-led efforts to promote volunteerism havebeen very active in Japan, especially in the field of social welfare. Each locality has thistype of social welfare oriented volunteer centers. But a volunteer manager who ran thevolunteer relief operation for the city of Ashiya found that “the government-led volunteer
centers were so overwhelmed at the time of the disaster and could not respond to the unpredictable situations.” Therefore, he himself as a volunteer took over the leadership as amanager of volunteers who came to the Ashiya city office. About a few months after theearthquake, Prof. Noriko Tsutsui of Ryukoku University conducted a survey of the 10 cities affected directly by the Hanshin Awaji earthquake regarding which departments of thecity office were responsible for coordinating relief volunteers. She found that only one city,
the city of Takarazuka, delegated the relief volunteer management to this type ofgovernment-led volunteer center. According to Prof. Tsutsui’s survey, the responsible department in the other cities could be any of the following: the general affairs department,
personnel department, accounting department, and even the international exchange department (Tsutsui, 1995). It should be noted that the Ashiya city office designated the international exchange department to be responsible for volunteer coordination. As may besuspected, these arrangements existed on paper only. In reality, the volunteer leader
quoted earlier, rather than the international exchange department, took on the leadershipof volunteer management for the city of Ashiya.
The earthquake literally shifted and shook up the way people constructed the realityof society. Suddenly, the domain of volunteerism emerged in people’s reality. It is easy tounderstand why the Japanese mass media coined the term “Year One of Volunteerism” inorder to describe this sudden emergence of a volunteer movement. It is possible to argue,
however, that 1995 was not the “Year One”, but rather the “Renaissance” of volunteerism
in Japanese society.
This insight started with one phone call from a 93 year old retired schoolteacher, Mr.
Ohkura, who called the Kwansei Gakuin Relief Volunteer Center. Mr. Ohkura introduced

― 192 ―社 会 学 部 紀 要 第８７号

himself as a victim of the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. He was a college student in Tokyo at
the time of the disaster. He and some other people from the western part of Japan escaped from Tokyo by boat and went to Kobe. When he arrived at the Kyobashi pier inKobe port, Mr. Ohkura was welcomed by the Kwansei Gakuin University Relief volunteer
center volunteers and was given clothing, food and transportation to a downtown Kobe
station. He asked if the 1995 relief activities were in any way related to the 1923 relief
activities. It was later learned that KGU students did organize a relief volunteer center in
1923 at the Kobe port. That center even sent a group of volunteers to Tokyo.
In the 1920’s, the fourth Chancellor, Dr. C.J.L. Bates, a Canadian Methodist Missionary, was very active in the KGU community and made a considerable moral impact upon
the university students at that time. One of Dr. Bates’ long lasting contributions to Kwansei Gakuin University, was the school’s mission statement, “Mastery for Service”. Thismission statement was revived by the 1995 Kobe earthquake. About 2,300 students of the
14,000 student body were registered at the KGU volunteer center alone during the threemonth period following the quake. A cumulative total of more than 7,500 students wereinvolved in relief activities under KG Relief Volunteer Center management (Figure 1).
When asked, “Why did you come?” the nearly unanimous answer was “Mastery for Service”. It was impressive to learn that it was not economic interest but a mission statementthat mobilized these many students during the crisis.
Kwansei Gakuin University was not alone in organizing relief volunteers during the1923 Tokyo earthquake. Students from Tokyo Imperial University, now University of Tokyo, were also very active in responding to public need in 1923. The following is a quotefrom the relief volunteer center leader at that time, Prof. Izutaro Suehiro summarizing
student efforts:
It is my great pleasure as an advocate for young students to observe thatthose who have been often criticized for selfish conduct and Epicurean inclinations by older generations, have united their efforts, to the point of selflessness, and have been able to make considerable achievement in response to
public need (Suehiro, 1923).
There existed a wide array of volunteers to help out people during the 1923 Tokyo
earthquake. In fact, those Tokyo Imperial University Students along with the dedicatedassistance from Prof. Suehiro and Prof. Shigeto Hozumi, later founded the University Settlement House in a neighboring slum district of Honjo in 1924. This settlement house isconsidered the possible birthplace of the modern Japanese volunteerism movement. This
is why it is not correct to name the year 1995 the “Year One” of Japanese volunteerism.

The End of the 1940 System and the Emergence of Civil Society in Japan
One may wonder why there was not much public consciousness about people-based
public interest weaving for the past few decades. The answer to this question can befound in the history of Tokyo Imperial University Settlement House. In 1938, the settlement house was banned due to the order from the then military government (Miyata,1995). In the same year, the war with China started and the National Mobilization law

March ２０００― 193 ―was enacted. This was the beginning of what recent economists and political commentators call “the 1940 system” (Noguchi, 1995; Sakaiya, 1995). The 1940 system is the Japanese counter-part to the system enacted by Nazi Germany (van Wolferern, 1989). The system transformed Japan into a bureaucrat-controlled highly centralized society. It has
taken 50 years since the last war for people in Japan re-discovered the existence ofpeople-based voluntary weaving of public interests outside of the control of governments.
At the onset of war with China, the National Mobilization Law was enacted. The
spirit of this wartime emergency law was very clear. In order to execute the war against
China and later against the Allied Powers, all resources and manpower had to be tightly
controlled by the state. In 1941, the National School Ordinance was enacted. This was thegovernment’s attempt to place the educational system tightly under state control. The system was modeled after that of Nazi Germany. The name, national school was even a direct translation of Volksschule. Since then, school has been the ideological incubator for
totalitarian government administrators of the 1940 system. In the field of social welfare, asimilar transformation occurred. Until 1938, the state never showed much interest incharity, philanthropy or social services. These were considered to be in the domain of athen existing voluntary sector. However, after the Social Service Law, charity and philanthropy came under the strict control of the state. The main thrust to this move was forthe state to take care of disabled soldiers, the wartime widows and their children.
The transformation in economy, politics, education, and social services dated back to
the 1940’s. This 1940 system still survived even after the war was ended in 1945. As amatter of fact, the new post war government and business sectors maintained the spirit ofthis system so that all societal energies and resources were efficiently planned and concentrated solely for economic recovery of the nation (van Wolferen, 1989).
One may wonder how it could be possible for Japan to maintain wartime socioeconomic measures after the new democratic constitution was inaugurated. In the case of
the disappearance of volunteerism for fifty years after the war, this was possible not despite the new Constitution, but because of it. Article 89 of the Constitution states that“public money and other public equity shall not be spent or used for charity, education orphilanthropic services that are not under state control.” This section was included because
social services were used in order to assist the execution of war. The occupation forces did
not wish the same thing to happen again. Thus, the principle of the division of public andprivate institutions was introduced (Okamoto, 1984).
Article 89 shocked many social service administrators. This principle threatened toforce most social service institutions into chronic financial instabilities. Japan lost most of
its economic infrastructure for industrial recovery, therefore, social service administrators
could not count for much help from the business sector. After the occupation forces left Japan, a new interpretation of article 89 appeared. If the state could not support any social
service institutions that were not under state control, it was decided to let those social institutions be under state supervision. Thus, special social welfare corporations wereformed. Those corporations were strictly controlled and supervised by the state. In return,they were able to receive government subsidies and grants to run standardized services.
As a result, the bureaucrat’s dream of coherent, systematized, and standardized social

― 194 ―社 会 学 部 紀 要 第８７号

welfare services was maintained after the war. The motive for the state control was ofcourse different in the postwar time, but the centralized structure to govern the system ofserving public interests remained just as in the old days (Noguchi, 1995).
More detailed discussions on the 1940 system, why and how it survived after the introduction of the new Constitution go beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, it
should be noted that the new post war government and business sectors maintained thespirit of this system so that all societal energies and resources were efficiently plannedand concentrated solely for economic recovery of the nation (van Wolferen, 1989; Noguchi,
1995).
The 1995 Kobe earthquake really changed the mindset of Japanese people. The earthquake created an open psychological space in post-war Japanese society. It opened a newfrontier. The social construction of reality drastically shifted from a one dimensional public interest model to a two dimensional model. This shift allowed Japanese people to sharethe common language of civil society, active citizenship and community involvement withthe rest of the world.
The above hypothesis was supported by a random sample survey conducted in Marchof 1999 (Tatsuki & Hayashi, 1999). 3,300 questionnaires were sent to earthquake survivors asking their views of society, family, themselves, and their relationship to individual
recovery from the disaster. 993 questionnaires were returned of which 623 In-Hyogo

Figure 4：Interreiationship of disaster, Civec-mindedness, & Recovery

March ２０００― 195 ―

(25.7%) and 292 Out-of-Hyogo residents (37.1%) were valid. One of the variables examined in this survey was the level of civic-mindedness. Reflection on pre-to post-earthquake
changes in civic-mindedness revealed that self-governance and a solidarity orientation increased while conformity/obedience to preexisting morality did not show significant
change. Furthermore, those who are high on the self-governance and solidarity formation
orientation scale tended to be better-adjusted four years after the earthquake than those
who were low (See Figure 4).
Many lives and valuable things were lost in the 1995 Kobe earthquake. But, at thesame time, a new reality of the society emerged as a response to this mega disaster. This
new reality empowered people. The new reality was consisted of two dimensions. One dimension was a dimension of self-governance. An emerging sense of self-governance, rather
than a conforming to the outside morality enabled people to think and act on his or her
own. The other dimension was a dimension of community solidarity. Rather than pursuingnarrow self-interests, people became motivated to solve community issues by forming coalition and pursuing a collective action. Stronger sense of self-governance and community
solidarity became a basis to promote a civil society in Japan. It is to be hoped that thistrend continues into the next millennium.
Bibliography
Mitchel, J.T. (1983). When disaster strikes.... The critical incident stress debriefing process. Journal of Emergency Medical Services, 8. 36‐39.
Miyata, S. (1995). Who saw the wind? An origin of volunteerism, a story of Tokyo University Settlement movement. (In Japanese). Tokyo: Bungeishunjyu.
Noguchi, Y. (1995). The 1940 system: A farewell to war time economy. (In Japanese) Tokyo: Toyokeizaishinpo.
Okamoto, E. (1984). Current context of social welfare and issues on “volunteer as cheap manpower” (In Japanese) Studies on Community Social Welfare. 12. Reprinted in Y. Ogasawara & N. Hayase (Eds). (1986).
Theories of volunteerism, vol. 2. 204‐214.
Sakaiya, T. (1995) What is Japan? Contradictions and transformations. NY: Kodansha America.
Suehiro, I. (1923). On Imperial University students’ relief activities. (In Japanese) Kaizoh, October, 74‐81.
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July 12, 1999.

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ABSTRACTThis paper deals with three topics that are related to the re-emergenceof volunteerism in Japan after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. The first topic isin the form of a “veteran’s field story”. It will provide readers with a sense ofwhat is foreseeable and what is controllable during the emergency response
period. The second topic is how the earthquake literally changed the way
people constructed the reality of the society. Faced with the sudden emergence of an extreme number of volunteers, the mass media coined the term
“Year One of Volunteerism”. It could be argued, however, that 1995 was not
the “Year One”, but more accurately a “Renaissance” of volunteerism inJapanese society. The third topic is an attempt to provide an historic accountof the socio-economic contexts in which the earthquake galvanized the transformation of Japan into a country empowered by a civil society. This paper
aims to convey that although Japan is a non-Judeo-Christian nation, it nevertheless shares the common language of civil society, active citizenship andcommunity involvement in preparation for the next millennium.