Recently, there have been reports of suspicious persons claiming to be from the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) or JICA Overseas Cooperation Volunteers calling individual residences and requesting the donation or purchase of outdated items for recycling.
JICA may accept donations of sports, cultural, educational, welfare, and other items from applicants through the “For Smiles Around the World” program, which is an open call for donors in Japan via the JICA website.
However, JOCV or JICA Overseas Cooperation Volunteers will not visit your home or business directly to ask you to donate or purchase items, nor will JOCV or JICA Overseas Cooperation Volunteers call you to ask you to do so.
We have also found scams in the name of JICA as well as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), so we urge you to be careful. We would like to ask you to be especially careful as elderly people living alone are likely to be targeted.
If you receive such a request, etc., we would appreciate it if you could contact us by calling toll-free at 0800-100-5391 (reception hours: weekdays 10:00-12:30 and 13:30-17:00).
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