The JTCAFA scholarship program selects 40 students a year from those already studying at 14 different universities throughout Turkey. To date about 200 students have received JTCAFA scholarships. The purpose of the scholarship project, which started in 2006, is to nurture human resources that will contribute to the development of the students' home countries in Central Asia. "It's wonderful that Japan, a distant country, is involved with this program," said one student. Another said: "Our country is poor. My goal is to eventually study abroad in Japan, a developed nation, to help build a future for our country."

Another goal of the program is to build personnel networks between Central Asia and Japan. "We hope to strengthen courses on Japanese culture and economy to help students achieve a deeper understanding of Japan," said Ms. Kyoko Vrboski, a JTCAFA representative. JTCAFA provides scholarship recipients in Turkey with lectures held twice a year about Japanese business, culture and history by invited lecturers from Japan. Japanese language lectures are also offered for interested students.

Human resource projects undertaken with developing countries form one of the most important focal points of the activities of the Nippon Foundation. The Foundation is keen to assist the development of Central Asian countries that joined the Asian community after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The scholarship program aims to nurture excellent students from Central Asia, who are studying in Turkey , so that they may contribute to the long-term development of their own countries.

With this is mind, the Foundation in cooperation with JATCAFA, which is based in Turkey, selects students who display the potential to become the next generation of leaders in their respective fields in their home countries. The Foundation and JATCAFA strongly encourage the recipients of scholarships to gain as much as they can from their studies in Turkey. After the scholarship recipients' studies have been completed, they are expected to return to their home countries and maintain, over the course of their lives, the network established during their stay in Turkey through the activities of JATCAFA and Alumni associations.