I was part of a non-profit organization that attempted just that. Basically what we did was identify a sector of the population who were more open to learning (i.e. high school students) and encouraged them to pursue sustainable changes in their community. Every week after school, they would receive lessons on sociology, psychology, biology philosophy from university professors and grad students and shown how such fields has lessons that are applicable to their daily lives. We figured that the community would be more open to their own kids than outsiders at the university. But just the fact that the high school kids were receiving grants and scholarships to pursue service projects worked very well.

Personally, I think such programs are a necessity, more so than just short term funding which leaves some people reliant on said funding instead of creating sustainable change in their community on their own.

TL;DR: You're going to have to tailor philosophy, psychology, and sociology to each community and show them how knowledge on those subjects can be used to improve the community and their own lives. Otherwise, it's just yet another lesson from outsiders without actually doing anything from them.