Scholarships for Marginalized Communities

​​AFEP is committed to equitable access. Each year, the Community Development Project Initiative will offer an annual scholarship to one prospective participant - either a child, youth, adult woman, or senior from a marginalized community. The scholarship provides the same training, mentorship, and project opportunities available to all AFEP participants. This will commence from the second year of operations.

Scholarship recipients will be identified in collaboration with community stakeholders, ensuring that support reaches individuals with demonstrated need, potential, and meaningful community connection.

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What Our Participants Do

Empowerment of the individual and the community is our commitment. It is what we were meant to do. It is not only our vision but our mission. Because this ethos guides the program, participants from all demographics engage in projects that integrate creativity, service, and real-world problem-solving. Each project is intentionally designed to foster leadership, resilience, empathy, and civic responsibility while encouraging participants to apply learning in authentic community contexts.

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How We Are Guided

AFEP is grounded in Ackermann’s whole-child development model and Froebel’s discovery-based learning. Projects are further guided by Socratic inquiry, Stoic principles of resilience and self-regulation, and Japanese cultural values including omoiyari (empathy), gaman (perseverance), kaizen (continuous improvement), and ikigai (purpose) graduating with the valor, ethical values and morals founded on the Samurai tradition.

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Why It Matters

By linking learning to community action, participants develop confidence, critical thinking, ethical decision-making skills, and a strong sense of belonging. The initiative strengthens intergenerational relationships and empowers individuals to see themselves as active, responsible contributors to their communities. Our graduates will be the change agents, leaders, visionaries that will have the capacity and tenacity to reverse the deadly trends currently observed in society.