Report about Volunteers for the Olympics and Paralympics in Rio 2016
TUFS Featured
The first Olympic and Paralympic Games in South America took place in Rio de Janeiro in August and September 2016 respectively. The grandiosity of the event required the collaboration of thousands of volunteers from all over the world.
Several TUFS students made a huge contribution by volunteering to provide specialized services despite the distance between countries and the myth of insecurity that haunted the event. The determination and vivacity of the more than twenty TUFS students who participated in this unique experience revealed the spirit of the University at which they study.
As a staff member in the Global Japan Office in Rio de Janeiro, I had the opportunity to closely follow the work of these highly motivated, vibrant and enthusiastic volunteers, who were full of energy during their stay in Rio, remarkable since the first moment I met them at the airport, even after their thirty-hour flight.
The work they developed required high-skilled knowledge, since most of the time they served as interpreters, which implied having a good cultural background and knowledge of interpretation techniques, as well as the mastery of at least one foreign language such as English, Portuguese, Spanish, or Korean, in order to meet the media and athletes’ needs in Japanese.
In addition to the skilled language assistance, the volunteers gave support to other activities required by the organizers in the different locations in the city, where the Olympic Games took place. Moreover, the volunteers were frequently asked to give inter