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Join Us

There is more than one way in.

TEIGEN JP is an organization of Questioners, mostly high school and university students. It is not a club that exists to be fun. It carries responsibility and real work — and because of that, experience you will not get elsewhere.

Members at work
TEIGEN JP members
Our work in progress

Ways to Engage

Let's build it together

Schools, municipalities, companies, and teenagers. As many ways in as there are places to stand.

Members at work
For SchoolFor Schools

Mock Ward Mayoral Election for School and our outreach classes. Hands-on programs that connect to extracurriculars, inquiry-based learning and student council activity.

 For GovernmentFor Local Government

Co-hosting and sponsorship, joint work on election awareness, and research collaboration on the youth council model.

 For CorporateFor Companies and Foundations

Sponsorship, CSR and CSV partnerships, goods and venues, corporate training, co-created programs.

 For TeensIf you are a teenager

We normally recruit once a year. Where recruitment stands, what you will get out of it, and how to apply.

For School

For Schools

Mock Ward Mayoral Election for School takes students from drafting policy through candidacy, speeches and voting; alongside it we run civic education and cleanup outreach classes. Delivery is built on what we learned working with the election administration commission, and runs from two periods upward. If you can only free up one, we come as a speaker instead.

So far: six deliveries, 240 participants in total — three Mock Ward Mayoral Elections in Adachi and three deliveries of Osouji-tai: Protect Your Neighborhood in elementary schools, with Duskin Co., Ltd.

Every fee goes to running the organization and developing the materials. It is what it costs to keep giving teenagers a real experience of democracy, not a way of making money.How we think about cost →

About Mock Ward Mayoral Election for School Talk to us about bringing it to your school

For Government

For Local Government

From co-hosting and sponsoring events, through designing election-awareness work for younger people, to research collaboration on the youth council model that would wire teenagers' voices into policy. We reach, in their own generation's words, the people government finds hardest to reach.

So far: work with the Adachi Ward Office, Ward Assembly, Board of Education and Election Administration Commission, and a contribution to the commission's own publication.

All 47 prefectures by 2030 — TEIGEN VISION 2030. Would you be one of its first municipal partners? Start with a free thirty-minute conversation.

See the youth council model Talk to us about working together

For Corporate

For Companies and Foundations

Sponsorship and donations, CSR and CSV partnerships, materials, goods and venues — we welcome any partnership that runs through the work itself. Your expertise raises the quality of what teenagers learn, directly. We also take on corporate training built around a teenage perspective, and programs co-created from your business and ours.

So far: Duskin Co., Ltd., who developed Osouji-tai with us, among others.

So that teenagers keep getting to practise democracy.

We are not asking for sponsorship and donations so we can grow and turn a profit.This is what it costs to keep opening, next year and the year after, a place where teenagers experience real democracy. Hands-on civic education only happens once the documents are written, the materials are bought, and people have physically travelled there. Unless someone carries that, it runs on money out of the director's and a few members' own pockets, thins out, and eventually stops.

MATERIALS

Materials

Election bulletins, worksheets, ballot papers, and the equipment for the cleanup class. Anything a participant takes home is a direct cost.

OPERATION

Running the day

Setting up and clearing the venue, photographing the record, guiding participants. The costs that hold one event together and are hardest to see.

TRAVEL

Travel

The work happens where the schools and the municipalities are. There is a limit to how far high school and university students can keep travelling at their own expense.

DEVELOPMENT

Developing materials and training

Getting the program into a form another region can pick up, and training the students who will run it. The furthest-reaching investment toward 47 prefectures by 2030.

Everything given goes to running the organization and developing the materials.Fees from schools and municipalities are treated the same way. The breakdown, and what we did with the support given through the 2026 crowdfunding campaign, are published on the page on how support is used.

See our results and recognition Talk to us about a partnership

Partners & Collaborations

The institutions, companies and
organizations who built this with us.

Adachi Ward AssemblyCITY ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSIONJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE Adachi Ward AssemblyCITY ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSIONJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE Adachi Ward AssemblyCITY ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSIONJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE Adachi Ward AssemblyCITY ASSEMBLYAdachi Board of EducationBOARD OF EDUCATIONAdachi Election Administration CommissionELECTION COMMISSIONJunior Chamber International JapanCONFERENCE

Co-hosts, supporters, partners, memberships and speaking invitations. Partial list, in no particular order.See what we have built with others →

For Teens | From where you live

Why not start TEIGEN JP
in your own town?

The Mock Ward Mayoral Election and Osouji-tai are finished models. What is missing is the question your town raises. We will stay with you from finding people to dealing with the local authority — as part of TEIGEN VISION 2030, which opens a door for teenagers in all 47 prefectures by 2030.

Recruitment in Tokyo normally opens once a year, and the fourth cohort for 2026 has closed; the next round will be announced in our news and on social media. Enquiries about starting a Mock Ward Mayoral Election or an Osouji-tai where you live are taken all year. Below: what you get out of it, what protects you, and how to apply.

Five high school students in uniform, lined up in the pose of The Thinker
Whoever took the first step was a teenager, exactly as you are now.

How to start is written up in the TEIGEN Knowledge Base.The first three months →How to approach the local authority →When nobody joins →

Book a consultation (30 minutes, free) See TEIGEN VISION 2030

What You Gain

Experience you will not get elsewhere.

The front line of working with government

The speaker's office, a meeting room in the ward office, occasionally the Prime Minister's Office. Standing at the front of that as a student, and pushing a project through it, is worth something you cannot easily get anywhere else.

A meeting with the local authority

Standing in front of a class

Outreach classes in elementary, middle and high schools. Teaching the generation behind you is how you learn to speak like a person and to present so it lands.

A TEIGEN JP member showing elementary school children how to use a cloth, in front of an Osouji-tai slide

Meeting people

People your own age building from nothing, and also Diet members, mayors, public servants, teachers. Meeting that many different worlds changes what you can see.

An on-stage conversation

Ground to try things in

Know-how, contacts, budget and a platform for turning your own inquiry, idea or proposal into something real. The environment here exists to turn each person's question into a TEIGEN.

A workshop with poster paper

Programs

What is in place to grow you.

TEIGEN Dojo

Hands-on practice in business email, formal Japanese, writing documents, presenting, chairing meetings and dealing with people outside. Daily morning email drills included. Skills that hold up in the working world.

Chances to speak and compete

Forum invitations from election commissions and associations, competition entries, speaking slots. First prize at the Policy Championship and the NHK President's Award both came out of this.

Help with comprehensive-selection applications

University members advise high school members on their application materials, so what you did here counts toward where you go next.

NewsPicks premium membership

Sixty days of premium membership to the business media outlet NewsPicks, so that noticing what is going on becomes a daily habit.

Help with costs

Travel to outreach classes and outside events, and fees for external training, are paid or subsidised by the organization; travel to ordinary meetings is normally your own. It exists so that money is not the reason anyone stops.

Shofukai, our alumni association

A way to stay involved after you leave, as a Legacy Fellow, so that what earlier members know and who they know passes to the next generation.

Honest Note

Things to know before you apply.

TEIGEN JP is not somewhere you drop in casually. Before applying, read the document that sets out not only what is good about this but the responsibility expected of you and what it actually costs you.

WHAT WE SHAREWhat it says

  • Our shared phrase is "second to none". Teams are normally five people. There is nobody to hide behind
  • Failure is not held against you. Leaving it alone is
  • The unglamorous work is yours too: scheduling, correspondence, minutes, keeping things on track, fixing documents
  • It is as good as it gets. It is not easy
  • We protect your safety. We do not lower the standard. In busy stretches, three or four meetings a week

BEFORE YOU APPLYRead it, then decide

  • What the organization guarantees and what it asks of you, set down side by side
  • A five-point self-check to run before you apply
  • Anything that worries you can be raised openly at the briefing or the interview

Read "Before You Join"

Process

How to apply

Everything from applying to hearing the result happens online. During recruitment you can apply from anywhere in the country.

STEP 1

Apply

Through the form, during the recruitment window. No particular experience or record required.

STEP 2

Online briefing

What the work actually involves, with time to talk to current members.

STEP 3

Online interview

What brought you here, and what interests you. There is no right answer being looked for.

STEP 4

Result

Sent online.

STEP 5

Placement and training

You are placed in the division that fits what interests you and what you are good at, and start after training at the TEIGEN Dojo.

TEIGEN Knowledge

TEIGEN Answers

Bringing an outreach class into a school, starting one where you live, running a student organization. We write down the things we actually ran into and worked out.

For schools and boards of education

For teenagers about to start something

For anyone booking a speaker

Frequently asked questions

Is it all right if I don't know much about politics?
Yes. What matters is not how much you know but whether you carry a question about the world. The knowledge comes on its own, through the training and the work. If anything, we most want the people who have not yet found out what they are capable of.
Can high school students join?
Yes. More than half of our members — 53% as of June 2026 — are in high school. The organization is built around their energy, with university members and alumni providing the continuity.
How much time does it take?
Normally one meeting a week, about 60 minutes, mostly online. In busy stretches — the month before an event, say — it can be three or four times a week, in person or online. How heavy it gets depends on the season and on your role, so go in knowing that. Against it, the rules protect your schoolwork: you may miss anything in the week before exams, and no activity may start after 11pm.
Can I join from outside the Tokyo area?
Yes. We work mostly online, and everything from applying to hearing the result happens online. Members currently come from many different areas and schools across Tokyo and the three neighbouring prefectures.
Does it cost anything?
There is no joining fee and no membership fee. Travel to outreach classes and outside events, and fees for external training, are paid or subsidised by the organization. Travel to ordinary meetings is normally your own. Equipment and materials needed to run an event are paid for by the organization.
Are you recruiting right now?
Recruitment in Tokyo for the fourth cohort, 2026, has closed; the process ran in May 2026. The next round will be announced in our news and on social media — if you would like to hear about it, say so through the contact form. Separately, if you want to start a Mock Ward Mayoral Election or an Osouji-tai where you live, we take those enquiries all year round (thirty minutes, free).
Next Step

Turn your question about society
into a TEIGEN.

Recruitment in Tokyo is closed for now, but we can let you know when it reopens. Enquiries about starting one where you live are taken all year.

Start one where you live (open all year) Tell me when recruitment reopens Meet the Team