Enquiry Guide to Civic and Cleanup EducationBy role: schools, local government, teenagers, companies
TEIGEN JP is a student-led organization founded in June 2023 in Adachi City, Tokyo. Thirty-eight high school and university students (as of June 2026) work across two pillars: civic education and youth participation, and cleanup education and public-mindedness.
This page is stillpeople who arrived here by searching for the problem in front of them, without knowing the name TEIGEN JP. Here is what to settle first, with pointers to our practical guides, organized by role.
For schools and boards of education
You want a civic education lesson in a junior high or high school
Run as a lesson, what you need to decide is how many periods, when, and for which grade.
TEIGEN JP's outreach program (Mock Ward Mayoral Election for School / Mock Principal Election) takes students from analysing local issues through drafting policy, standing as candidates, speaking and voting, all within class time. 2 to 4 periods, 30,000–50,000 yen per session (plus travel and venue costs at actual expense). If only one period is available, we take it on as a talk rather than a lesson.
- How to bring a civic education outreach class into your school: internal approval, cost and preparation — building agreement inside the school, and explaining the cost
- Designing a mock election class: what to keep and what to go deeper on, in two periods versus four — what to give up when periods are limited
- Political neutrality in schools: what a class can do and what it should avoid — how to explain it to administrators and parents
You want to take up local issues in inquiry time
When inquiry ends as research, the cause is usually that constraints and a moment of decision are missing from the unit.
- Taking Up Local Issues in Inquiry-Based Study | Design from Theme-Setting to Presentation — why proposals drift towards publicity, and what to assess
You want student council elections to become a learning opportunity
- Preparing for a student council election: a mock election for comparing manifestos and choosing between them — turning a school event into a comparison of policies
You want cleaning time in elementary school to become learning
Osouji-tai is an outreach program whose curriculum was developed with the cooperation of Duskin Co., Ltd. For elementary schools, any grade, complete in a single period. The first session was held at Adachi Municipal Adachi Elementary School in December 2025.
- Turning School Cleaning Time into Learning | Designing Cleaning Instruction in Elementary School — why cleaning becomes a chore, and designs you can try tomorrow
What we ask of the school is to arrange the venue and date and to distribute a pre-session questionnaire (we may also ask you to print materials for the day). We bring the teaching materials, the facilitation and the ballot boxes.
Enquiries are handled through Contact Us. It is fine to get in touch before you have decided whether or when to run it.
For local governments, councils and election administration commissions
Raising turnout among young people is known to respond poorly to the sheer volume of awareness material. Turnout among 18 and 19 year-olds in the 2022 House of Councillors election was 34.49% (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). Read as proof of low interest, that figure pushes responses towards publicity.
TEIGEN JP runs the Mock Ward Mayoral Election in co-creation with Adachi City Hall, the city council, the board of education and the election administration commission. The 2025 edition drew 30 junior high and high school students, with 11 city council members taking part.
In its own published materials, the Adachi Ward Assembly lists holding the student-run Mock Ward Mayoral Election, and working to advance civic education, among the assembly reforms it carried out in 2023 under “resident participation” (Waseda University Manifesto Institute, Local Assembly Reform Survey 2023: 58th of 1,562 assemblies nationwide, 2nd among Tokyo's special wards).An assembly gains one more piece of work it can publish as a record of resident participation.
As institutional design research we publish the Adachi City Youth Council Proposal, a five-stage design for connecting the voices of 13 to 24 year-olds to policy-making.
- Planning civic education and voter awareness at a local authority | Setting the target group, the timing and the outcome — how to settle the target group, the timing, the outcome and the arrangement
- How to hold a mock election in your own town: approaching the local authority and the election commission — the difference between co-hosting, endorsement and cooperation, and what to ask at the first meeting
- Political neutrality in schools: what a class can do and what it should avoid — the points checked when public bodies get involved
- Appointing a young person to a council or committee | Requirements, neutrality, honoraria and how to proceed — re-reading the age requirement, and the three seats you can use
Appointments to councils, committees and review panels, hearings and formal statements, and study sessions for assembly members and officials are set out on Advisory and committee roles. It also covers what an appointment process tends to ask about — age requirements, neutrality and how honoraria are handled.
Co-hosting and endorsement, joint voter-awareness work and research collaboration are handled through Contact Us.
For teenagers
When you want to start something in your own town, the first stumbling block is not the content of the plan but finding people, and approaching adults.
TEIGEN JP shares the model, materials and operational know-how of the Mock Ward Mayoral Election and Osouji-tai, and walks alongside you until launch. Start-up consultations are 30 minutes, free, online, and open all year (recruitment of new members in Tokyo is, as a rule, once a year).
- Looking for somewhere to take part as a teenager | How to choose, and what to do when nobody is recruiting — where to look, and what to check before choosing
- Starting a student organization in high school: getting people, work and roles into shape in three months — where to begin
- How to hold a mock election in your own town: approaching the local authority and the election commission — the first one-page document to send a public body
- Why nobody joins your student organization, or nobody stays: three walls, and how to get past them — the slump that always follows the start
A guide that runs from looking through starting up to getting past the slump, in one piece, is A Guide to Teenage Civic Participation.
If you want to know what the work is really like before joining, readSecond to none sets out frankly what is expected of you, how often we meet, and what the organization owes you.
Enquiries are handled through Contact Us. It is fine if neither your plan nor your area is settled.
For parents and teachers
When your child or student says they want to start a student organization, the worry falls into safety, workload and schoolwork, and the effect on future study — three parts.
Before deciding whether to object or agree, it moves the conversation along better to put into words what you would need to know in order to feel reassured.
- When your child starts a student organization | What parents will want to check — how to check the structure, how to pin down the workload, and three questions to ask your child
Information about members who are minors is published only within the range that member has consented to, and in places is anonymised to school year and area alone. If there is a range you would rather we did not publish, tell us in advance and we will adjust.
For companies and foundations
Conversations that begin with wanting to do something with teenagers often end at sponsorship or a one-off event. Deciding at the outset what each side will be left with is what makes it last.
TEIGEN JP developed its cleanup education curriculum with the cooperation of Duskin Co., Ltd. Beyond sponsorship and donation, there is the option of co-creating a program.
We publish how support is used across five categories. Our 2026 crowdfunding campaign received 279,000 yen from 26 supporters, 139% of the target, and was applied along those categories.
- When a company works with teenagers | Designing co-creation that does not end at sponsorship — using the three forms of involvement distinctly, and how to explain it internally
- Booking a teenage speaker: designing the session so it is not just "the voice of youth" — when inviting a teenager to speak at a company event or training session
An index of what to settle first, by position — local government, companies and the press — is A Practical Guide to Working with Teenagers.
The partnership options are set out on Partnerships with schools and municipalities, and enquiries are handled through Contact Us.
For those looking for a speaker
Topics include civic education, youth political participation, Generation Z and social engagement, and what teenagers take on and how they build organizations. From one period (50 minutes), from 20,000 yen (plus travel at actual expense). Both in person and online.
- Booking a teenage speaker: designing the session so it is not just "the voice of youth" — how to write the request, and the kinds of request to avoid
Past engagements and topics are listed on Speaking. If you are looking for a committee member or a study session for assembly members and officials, see Advisory and committee roles.
For press and media
Our fact sheet and founder profile are published in the Newsroom.
Information about members who are minors is published only within the range that member has consented to, and in places is anonymised to grade and region only. Please allow us to work within that scope for interviews as well.
- Interviewing a teenage organization | How to write the request, and the care owed to minors — the six items a request needs, and the days consent takes
For fact-checking and interview requests, please write to contact@teigenjp.org.
About the definitions behind our figures
Every figure we publish carries the date it refers to. Definitions and sources are given on Results and Recognition.