Youth-led Civic Innovation from Adachi, Tokyo
Step out of the audience.
Step into the story.
Give every teenager the chance to discover who they have yet to become
TEIGEN JP is a student-led organization building new ways for young people to take part in democracy, based in Adachi City — one of Tokyo's 23 special wards.
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December 2023 · Prime Minister's Office A policy proposal to the Prime Minister
As the top team of the 1st National High School Policy Championship, we were received at the Prime Minister’s Office, where we paid our respects to Fumio Kishida, the 101st Prime Minister of Japan. With the national press looking on, we presented “introducing mock elections into schools” and “a proposal for a digital voting system” directly to the Prime Minister — just six months after we were founded.
I sincerely hope you will keep taking on each challenge, one by one, and hold on to your commitment to contributing to societyFumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan (at the time)
See our speaking record -
2023 · 1st edition National first prize
Hosted by the Junior Chamber International Japan and supported by the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Education. The 1st national tournament drew 406 students on 102 teams from across Japan. On the set theme “A new kind of election, powered by digital,” we proposed “Hybrid policy, future and present: a first step toward a new society,” argued from education and technology. With 2,612 votes, we took First Prize. It was the moment we began in earnest as a student organization.
See all awards and selections -
June 2025 · Special lecture In dialogue with a World Bank Vice President
Our founder Soka Horii joined Mercy Tembon, Vice President of the World Bank (at the time), in dialogue at the special lecture. The theme: youth participation and youth councils around the world. Drawing on our Mock Ward Mayoral Election in Adachi City and on what we had learned from the Toronto Youth Cabinet, he argued for a mechanism that connects young people’s voices to policy as an institution. That question is still being pursued in our research on a youth council for Adachi City.
See the record of the conversation -
July 2025 · Pacifico Yokohama In dialogue with the Mayor of Ashiya
At Summer Conference 2025, hosted by the Junior Chamber International Japan, our founder took the stage with Ashiya Mayor Ryosuke Takashima for a panel discussion. The theme: “Civic education changes a town and its future — toward a society where young voices are heard”. He led the discussion, speaking to the structural barriers that keep young people from engaging with politics, to a record of creating openings such as the Mock Ward Mayoral Election, and to a youth council concept modeled on the Canadian example.
We need a framework where government, schools and the community work as one to give shape to the voices raised in our outreach classes across the countrySoka Horii | Founder, TEIGEN JP
See selected engagements -
August 2024 · Toronto, Canada Meeting the head of Toronto's youth council
Toronto City Hall — where our founder met Stephen Mensah, Executive Director of the Toronto Youth Cabinet (TYC). TYC is an official body of the City of Toronto and the largest youth advocacy body in the world, making policy proposals and running workshops from a young person’s point of view. The two sides exchanged notes on their work and explored ways to partner — the starting point for what became our Youth Council Model (In Development).
It was an honor to hear Horii’s passion and determination in working toward a Tokyo where young people’s voices are reflected in decision-making.Stephen Mensah | Executive Director, Toronto Youth Cabinet
See the record of the meeting -
2023 · 70th edition Special Prize and NHK President's Award
Hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Association of Japan: The 70th High School Students' Speech Contest for International Understanding and Cooperation. Our founder was one of 20 speakers who passed document screening to reach the Tokyo round at JICA Global Plaza, where he took the Special Prize. Representing Tokyo, he advanced to the national round at the Elizabeth Rose Conference Hall, United Nations University, where representatives of every prefecture competed. Out of 301 entries nationwide, he was awarded the NHK President's Award — the top 2%.
See all awards and selections
- People Reached1,000+ peoplePeople reached across all programs — Mock Ward Mayoral Election, Osouji-tai, school outreach and more
- Average Age17.0 yearsAverage age of our 38 members. Teenagers run this organization.
- Schools Represented22 schoolsSchools our 38 members attend (public, private and international)
Cumulative reach as of July 2026; membership as of June 2026. Definitions and sources are given in Results and Recognition.
Founding Question
Who gets to meet the person
they have not yet become?
It is always the same people who speak up. The same hands go up; the same ones get chosen to represent everyone. TEIGEN JP began in that unease. What we believe, in five chapters.
Partners & Collaborations
The institutions, companies and
organizations who built this with us.
GOVERNMENTAdachi Ward AssemblyWARD ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSION
COOPERATION
YOUTH NETWORK
FORUM
AWARDJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE
GOVERNMENTAdachi Ward AssemblyWARD ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSIONCOOPERATIONYOUTH NETWORKFORUMAWARDJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE
GOVERNMENTAdachi Ward AssemblyWARD ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSIONCOOPERATIONYOUTH NETWORKFORUMAWARDJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE
GOVERNMENTAdachi Ward AssemblyWARD ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSIONCOOPERATIONYOUTH NETWORKFORUMAWARDJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE
YOUTH PLATFORM
GLOBAL
AWARD
ENVIRONMENT
EDUCATION
YOUTH ELECTION
STUDENT ORGANIZATION
YOUTH PLATFORMGLOBALAWARDENVIRONMENTEDUCATIONYOUTH ELECTIONSTUDENT ORGANIZATION
YOUTH PLATFORMGLOBALAWARDENVIRONMENTEDUCATIONYOUTH ELECTIONSTUDENT ORGANIZATION
YOUTH PLATFORMGLOBALAWARDENVIRONMENTEDUCATIONYOUTH ELECTIONSTUDENT ORGANIZATION
YOUTH PLATFORMGLOBALAWARDENVIRONMENTEDUCATIONYOUTH ELECTIONSTUDENT ORGANIZATION
YOUTH PLATFORMGLOBALAWARDENVIRONMENTEDUCATIONYOUTH ELECTIONSTUDENT ORGANIZATION
Co-hosts, supporters, partners, memberships and speaking invitations. Partial list, in no particular order.
Two Pillars
Why civic education and cleaning?
Civic education and youth participation
Wiring teenagers into the rooms where decisions get made.
The Mock Ward Mayoral Election, the Mock Gubernatorial Election, outreach classes, and a youth council model (in concept). Thinking policy through, arguing it out, and standing to be chosen yourself.
See all our programs Pillar 02Community cleanup and public-mindedness
The nearest piece of the public, in your own hands.
Osouji-tai: Protect Your Neighborhood. Putting your classroom and your town in order with your own hands is where responsibility for society starts.
See Osouji-taiProjects
Every program begins with a question of its own.
Civic EducationWhy does civic education so often stop at practicing how to vote?Adachi Mock Ward Mayoral Election
Clean EducationWhy are Japan's streets among the most beautiful in the world?Osouji-tai: Protect Your Neighborhood
OutreachDoes civic education reach the teenagers who are not already interested?School Outreach Program
Confirmed
See every project, including the Setagaya Mock Ward Mayoral Election →
Voices
TEIGEN JP, in Our Own Words
"From the audience to the people making it."
Saki Akiyama | Participant 2025 → Operations Team 2026 → Manager, Civic Education Division
A year after taking part as a participant, she was running the program. Overwhelmed and then carried forward by the drive of the people around her, she came out of it with the confidence she has now.
Read the interview"I don't say I can't."
Aoi Mihoya | Setagaya Mock Ward Mayoral Election Operations Team, third cohort
Joined six months after the team had already started. With no idea how to write an email or hand over a business card, the answer was to build a situation where saying "I can't" was not an option.
Read the interview"Second year of high school. Job title: project manager."
Shuta Kanehara | Project Manager, Adachi Mock Ward Mayoral Election, third cohort
A high school junior leading a team where every member is a high school student. In an organization that runs on roles rather than age or seniority, he puts it plainly: a team that falls apart without me is a team I have failed to build.
Read the interview"Nothing changes while you wait for someone else to act."
Masatsugu Goto | Manager, Clean Education Division
Gum stuck under the desks and bread jammed in the toilets — what he saw at school in New Zealand. Why is Japan comparatively clean? He turned that question into a program that had never existed before.
Read the interview"Founding members don't graduate."
Kanae Yokohama | Shofukai, Legacy Fellows, first cohort, founding member
In 2023 there were four people and a question. As the group grew, enthusiasm alone stopped holding it together — and out of that pain came structure. Why she keeps walking alongside the organization as a Legacy Fellow after graduating.
Read the interviewExpansion & Base Map
From Adachi to Tokyo.
And then to every town.
We work primarily online, with three physical bases in Tokyo for general meetings, working sessions and events. Each new region gets the model redesigned for its own context — one more circuit for young people to take part, at a time.
The regional mock mayoral election and Osouji-tai have been delivered in Adachi. Three Tokyo hubs support models adapted to each community.
See our work in TokyoSoka Horii Founder and Executive Director, TEIGEN JP | First year, Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University
FROM A QUESTION TO A SYSTEM
One person's question,
turned into someone else's opportunity.
Adachi City, 2023.
In a climate where nothing was expected to change, one 15-year-old could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Why should the chance to think about society and act on it depend on where you happen to grow up?
Three friends from the same neighborhood answered that question. One person's unease became four people's resolve, and TEIGEN JP began.
Read what happened next
The first Mock Ward Mayoral Election did not end as a one-off event. High school students who had taken part came back to build the next one, and partnerships with local government, schools and companies followed. What began in Adachi is now spreading to Setagaya and to Tokyo as a whole.
That way of learning — ask, think, work with others, act — has since moved beyond civic education into new practices, starting with learning through community cleanup.
An organization that began with four people is now38.
Through our work so far we have reached1,000 people with opportunities to learn and to argue things out.
But the number we most want to grow is not participants, or programs.
It is this: the person who received an opportunity creates the next one for someone else.
That cycle is the point.
TEIGEN JP is not built to preserve its founder's intentions. It is built so that each generation can take the question it inherits, ask it again in its own words, decide for itself, and rebuild the practice around it.
One person's question is becoming something other than an answer to hand down. It is becoming the machinery that lets the next person start asking.
The next chapter belongs to the next Questioner.
Scenes
The room, not just the record.
Latest News
Latest News
SPEAKINGA talk at Tokai Shofu High School in AichiAt Aichi Prefectural Tokai Shofu High School, our executive director, Soka Horii, gave a talk on turning your own formative experience and your own drive into policy that moves society.
SPEAKINGSpoke at a council member study session in Yashio City, SaitamaAt Yashio City Hall, we spoke at a council member study session titled "Opening the Future of Local Assemblies: Standards for Evolving Local Councils through a Citizen's Perspective."
PROJECTLet's talk about the world, here in Soka — Dokkyo University students × the Mayor of SokaWhat you saw abroad, what you felt on exchange, the cultures you met. Why not bring what the world taught you back to the future of Soka?
PROJECTWe held our 2026 general meetingWe held our 2026 general meeting at the Ginza Community Hall, with every member together in one room.
SPEAKINGSpeaking at "High School Students Ask Japan's Leaders: Hints for How to Live"Our executive director, Soka Horii, appeared as a commentator at "High School Students Ask Japan's Leaders: Hints for How to Live", held at the Ikeda Civic Cultural Hall.
Awards & Honors
From a national first prize to a world finals.
Since our founding in 2023 we have earned nine awards and selections (as of June 2026). From a national competition backed by central government ministries to the United Nations Association's speech contest, TEIGEN made by teenagers have been recognized.
The 1st National High School Policy Championship
Supported by the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and the Ministry of Education. Our TEIGEN: mock elections nationwide, and digital election reform.The 70th High School Students' Speech Contest for International Understanding and Cooperation
Hosted by the United Nations Association of Japan. Special Prize in the Tokyo round; NHK President's Award in the national round (301 entries nationwide).The World Scholar's Cup
The 4th NEO Awards, Earth Day Tokyo
The entry was exhibited at Marui Yurakucho.JCI JAPAN TOYP 2025
Track Record
Selected Engagements
A selection from forty speaking engagements as of July 2026. From the Prime Minister's Office to a middle school classroom — change the room and you change what needs saying.
Government
- 2024Youth Leader Forum, Association for Promoting Fair Elections and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (November, representing Tokyo)
- 2026Citizenship Education Meeting, Japan Citizenship Education Forum (March)
Assemblies and schools
- 2026Study session for members of the Yashio City Assembly, Saitama (June)
- 2026Aichi Prefectural Tokai Shofu High School (July)
- 2026Adachi Municipal Fourth Middle School (March)
Business bodies and conferences
- 2026Summer Conference 2026, Junior Chamber International Japan (July) — on stage with Kazuhiro Fujihara
- 2025Adachi 100-Person Meeting — its youngest ever guest speaker
International
- 2024Meeting with Stephen Mensah, Executive Director of the Toronto Youth Cabinet (August, Toronto, Canada)
- 2025In conversation with Mercy Tembon, then Vice President of the World Bank (June)
- 2026"Hints for How to Live": in conversation with the Mayor of Minoh and the Mayor of Miyake (April, Ikeda, Osaka)
Our Belief
A Question Can Move Society.
A small unease you cannot yet put into words meets other people, becomes a TEIGEN, and moves society. The five powers of a question, as we understand them.
words yet.Don't let the small wrongnesses go past you.Read this chapter → 02Yourself02 ─ SelfA question opens the person
you have not yet become.Ask, and you meet a version of yourself you had not met.Read this chapter → 03Meeting03 ─ EncounterA question brings
people together.The same question ties together people who would never otherwise have met.Read this chapter → 04TEIGEN04 ─ TeigenA question becomes a TEIGEN.Turning unease into a TEIGEN — a proposal built to reach the people who decide.Read this chapter → 05Society05 ─ ChangeA question can
move society.One TEIGEN outlives the moment — as policy, as curriculum, as the next person's opportunity.Read this chapter →
For You
Whatever brought you here.
Teachers, teenagers wanting to start something, people looking for a speaker. Tell us why you came and we will point you at the answer.
Schools and boards of education looking for an outreach class
Civic education for middle and high schools — Mock Ward Mayoral Election for School and Mock Principal Election — and Osouji-tai for elementary schools. Two to four periods, ¥30,000–50,000 per delivery as a guide; the cleanup class fits in one period. What to prepare, how neutrality works and what it costs are answered here too.
Starting oneFor TeensTeenagers who want to start something where they live
The mock election and the cleanup class are both finished models. We hand over the materials and the know-how and stay with you until it is running. The first conversation is thirty minutes, free, online, and available all year — not just during recruitment.
SpeakingFor SpeakingLooking for a speaker
Civic education, youth political participation, Gen Z in public life, teenagers taking a risk. Forty engagements so far, from the Prime Minister's Office to a middle school classroom. From one 50-minute period, in person or online.
PartnershipFor CorporateCSR and CSV teams at companies and foundations
Sponsorship and donations, CSR and CSV partnerships, materials, goods and venues, corporate training, co-created programs. Everything given goes to running the organization and developing the materials, and we publish how it was split and what it did.
Organization
Organization Profile
| Name | TEIGEN JP, a student organization |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1 June 2023 |
| Executive Director | Soka Horii |
| Based in | Adachi, Tokyo — and outward from there, across Tokyo and the country |
| Members | 38 as of June 2026, drawn from 22 schools and universities, from first-year high school to first-year university |
| Programs | Civic education: Mock Ward Mayoral Election／School Outreach Program Community cleanup: Osouji-tai: Protect Your Neighborhood |
| Main partners | Adachi Ward Office, Adachi Ward Assembly, Adachi Board of Education, Adachi Election Administration Commission and others (Duskin Co., Ltd. cooperated in the development of our cleanup education curriculum) |
| Contact Us | contact@teigenjp.org |
Changing society is not
reserved for special people.
The next TEIGEN starts with the question already in you.