Home / ADVISORY
Advisory
One teenager in the room
where it is decided.
Appointments to councils, committees and review panels; hearings and formal statements; research collaboration; study sessions for assembly members and officials. Not a one-off occasion for hearing young people out, but a role in the room where things are decided.
Why
Being heard is not the same as deciding.
The voting age is 18. Below 18 there is almost no institutional room for political participation, and the share of young members on government councils remains very low. A teenager's voice may be heard at a one-off hearing, but it rarely gets built into the structure that decides anything. That is what we have found on the ground.
Since 2023 we have run a program, co-created with the Adachi Ward Office, Ward Assembly, Board of Education and Election Administration Commission, in which teenagers draft policy, stand as candidates, deliberate and vote. What it has shown us, again and again, is that teenagers are not short of opinions. They are short of a route by which an opinion arrives.
So we publish our Youth Council Model (In Development) — a five-stage design that keeps the voices of 13-to-24-year-olds connected to policymaking. Serving on committees is part of how we keep that design from staying on paper.
What We Do
What we take on
We take on only what we have done ourselves and published a record and figures for. We will not speak in generalities as "a representative of young people" about something we have no experience of.
Member of a council, committee or review panel
We serve on statutory and advisory bodies of local authorities, on bodies set up by boards of education and election administration commissions, and on review panels convened by ministries and research institutions. Age requirements and rules on composition differ between bodies, so tell us the requirements first. Even where there is no precedent for a member under 18, an existing route — an open-application seat, a specialist seat, or a subcommittee seat — will often work.
What the appointing side has to settle is covered in Appointing a young person to a council or committee, from re-reading the requirements to running the meeting itself.
Hearings, formal statements and public consultations
We give the view of the people the policy is about, while a plan or a reform is being made. Even for a one-off hearing, share the questions and the papers beforehand and what you get back will be comment on the design, not impressions.
Research collaboration
We collaborate on research into youth participation and civic education. We have published our own work too — measuring shifts in attitude on identical items before and after a program, and a structural analysis of the 34.49% turnout. Bringing us in while the survey is still being designed makes the results far easier to defend later.
Study sessions and training for assembly members and officials
We speak at study sessions for assembly groups and committees, at training for municipal staff, and at teacher training. One example is the study session for members of the Yashio City Assembly in Saitama (June 2026). Indicative costs are on the Speaking page.
Taking part in drafting plans and ordinances
We take part, as the people it concerns, in designing the plans and ordinances that give youth participation a place in the system. Who is eligible, how open application and random selection are combined, the duty to respond to a TEIGEN, short-term places — we have set out the questions that keep it from tilting toward the already-engaged.
Record
What we are basing this on
The things an appointment process tends to ask about, set out with the date each refers to. Definitions and sources are on Results and Recognition.
| Co-creation with government | Co-created with the Adachi Ward Office, Ward Assembly, Board of Education and Election Administration Commission, the hands-on civic education program Mock Ward Mayoral Election has run several times since 2023. We have also supported the commission's outreach classes and written for and appeared on the cover of its publications. |
|---|---|
| Speaking in assemblies and government settings | Study session for members of the Yashio City Assembly, Saitama (June 2026); Youth Leader Forum of the Association for Promoting Fair Elections and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (November 2024); policy proposal to the then Prime Minister (December 2023). |
| Research and TEIGEN | We publish the five-stage institutional design of the youth council model, a structural analysis of the 34.49% turnout, the design principles behind hands-on civic education, and governance built so that nothing depends on one person. |
| External recognition | First prize at the inaugural National High School Policy Championship, the NHK President's Award at the national round of the High School Students' Speech Contest, and others — 9 awards and selections as of June 2026. |
| International settings | In conversation with Mercy Tembon, then Vice President of the World Bank (June 2025); exchange of practice with the Toronto Youth Cabinet in Canada. |
| Neutrality | Our policy — neither supporting nor opposing any party, political body or candidate, and never steering a vote — was agreed by the board and is published in full. |
Expertise
Subjects we can speak to
| Institutional design of youth participation | Youth councils, their place as a statutory advisory body, ordinances, and building the routes by which children's and young people's views reach policy. |
|---|---|
| Civic education | The design principles behind hands-on civic education, designing and running mock elections, bringing them into schools, and connecting them to inquiry-based learning and student council elections. |
| Young people and elections | Structural analysis of turnout, the gap left below 18 by a voting age of 18, and designing election-awareness work. |
| Political neutrality in schools | Designing lessons in line with Article 14 of the Basic Act on Education and the Ministry of Education's notices — what a class can do, and what it should avoid. |
| Education in public-mindedness | Building a sense of ownership over shared space through cleaning, and developing and delivering a curriculum for elementary schools. |
| Teenagers running an organization | Starting a student organization and keeping it going, governance built so nothing depends on one person, and how one cohort hands over to the next. |
For anything not listed, ask — we will tell you whether it falls within what we have actually done. If we cannot answer something, we say so.
Practical
Practical ground rules
We are 38 high school and university students as of June 2026, some of them under 18. Names and photographs are published only within the scope each member has consented to, and we would ask to agree in advance how an open meeting, its record and any press coverage will be handled. Dates are arranged so that schoolwork still works, though we have taken part on weekdays during school hours. We take part online, and can also discuss attending in person, including dates and how travel is handled.
Whether there is an honorarium, and how much, is something we would rather discuss in line with your own rules. Where appointments are made to individuals, our executive director Soka Horii takes the seat personally. How the affiliation and title are written, and how the organization's position and a personal view are distinguished, we agree in advance.
FAQ