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September 28, 2020

Ms Yamamoto's JOCV activities in Botswana

皆さん、こんにちは。

Dumelang!

My name is Masae Yamamoto. I am an ex-JOCV member for Solid Waste Management and I worked for two years in Botswana between March 2017 to March 2019.

After graduating from a university in Japan, I got a job at a waste management company in Yokohama. I decided to enroll for a postgraduate school at the same time as a JOCV member. While working as a JOCV member in Botswana, I also conducted field research in parallel and submitted a master's thesis one year later upon returning to Japan after research work in the school. I then joined one of the largest construction-consulting firms after completing my master's degree and currently engaged in waste-related projects in developing countries.

Being able to work as one of JOCV members has enabled me to go on to graduate school and to find a job at a leading consulting company, and I am still able to work in developing countries. I would like to share some of my experience with the hope that it will be helpful to everyone who has (or will probably get) the experience of a JOCV opportunity in the future.

About activities in Botswana

I was deployed to work in the public health department at Kweneng District Council in Molepolole, which is about one-hour drive from Gaborone. My main goal was to improve the operation of the landfill for the waste discharged from homes and companies. By the time I completed my JOCV tenure in Botswana, I had managed to make recommendations regarding the operation of the final disposal site, improved the data management system, and created pamphlets and signboards for the landfill. Until then, I was only experienced in the disposal site in Japan, however, by working as a JOCV member, I was able to see the real situation of waste management in another country. It was difficult to work in a very different environment from Japan, but my colleagues kindly helped me many times, so I was able to spend a very valuable time there.


PhotoTogether with my colleagues

PhotoLandfill as my workplace in Botswana


PhotoPamphlet as an output


Working as a JOCV member and being a master degree's student at the same time

When I passed the JOCV recruitment exam, I decided to retire from the company and to enter a graduate school. The reason why I didn't choose to take a leave of absence from the company in order to participate in JOCV program was that I thought I would find out what I want to do in future during the activities in Botswana. In fact, before and after returning to Japan, my desired career changed, so I believe it was good for me to retire from the company.

On the other hand, there were two reasons why I decided to go on to graduate school.

One is that I wanted to improve my specialty and another is that the graduate school has a special program for JOCV members, which allows them to study outside school as a JOCV member.

I realised that I would work in future for developing countries and for waste management since I was interested in environment issues at university. Therefore, after graduating from the school, I got a job at a waste management company and then I was engaged in solid waste management as a JOCV member. When I realized that I wanted to work on the same path in the future, I felt the need to go on to graduate school and improve my expertise. Under the special program of the graduate school I enrolled in, I could obtain the master's degree in a total of three years, including two-year activities in Botswana and another year in Japan. The major advantages of this program were that I did not have to take a leave of absence, I could consult with my academic advisor about my activities in Botswana, and I could enroll for three years with two-year tuition fees.

For me to be able to manage in graduate school while I was in Botswana, I had to attend an online conference seminars as well as meetings with my instructors and other graduate students about research progress.

My research theme was "a study of life-extension measures of landfill sites in Botswana" so the waste that is brought into the landfill site on weekdays. I was collecting data, conducting interview surveys with colleagues, and conducting research activities while working as a JOCV member. I chose this research topic because the landfill site where I was assigned to is filling up an ever-increasing amount of waste, but no one knew how many years the site would be able to accept the waste. I felt that it would exceed the accepted capacity and could have a great impact on the environment. It is for this reason that my research results could contribute to proper waste management at my assignment site. There were other graduate students doing research on the same theme of waste management, so I was promoting research work while exchanging information with them.

For one year after returning to Japan, I was able to submit a master's thesis while obtaining remaining credits by having lectures, which culminated in the successful completion of my master's degree this spring.

In conclusion

As mentioned above, I feel that I was able to improve both quality of JOCV activities and my specialty by enrolling in graduate school during assignment in Botswana. It was never easy for me to balance my activities and research, but I believe that it was a fulfilling activity because I was able to enroll in graduate school. In my case, I entered the graduate school at the same time that I started JOCV activities in Botswana. I have heard that many ex-JOCV members enter the graduate schools after returning to Japan. The timing of admission may be different; however, I think that the desire to learn more is the same because of the participation in JOCV program. I urge everyone who is interested and encouraged by my story to go for graduate school to further their career.

In my article, I would like to share about my job hunting activities that I experienced after completing the JOCV activities and research at graduate school, and the current work at a construction consultant firm.

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