BACK TO THE ROOTS is an 8-month project aiming at educating Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and German students and young adults – who are interested in youth work – in the development and implementation of youth-exchanges within Europe, especially in rural regions. During several networking and individual meetings of Croatian and German educators and coaches, it became clear quickly that in the selected regions for the project Lika (Croatia) and Brandenburg (Germany) migration, vacancy rates and youth unemployment are correlating factors, which have to addressed.With this project, the members of MIKUB e.V. and OU Podum want to address these problems and use existing project-spaces/project-locations for it. Our aim is to offer diverse and interdisciplinary proposals at the different chosen project-locations especially to young people to help them developing their knowledge of intercultural work, evolving their own projects and to make them understand the importance of European Youth work. For this purpose, 30 young adults and students with a background in the field of ‘social work’ coming from Germany, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, will meet each other and use the chosen project-locations, to develop their own project ideas, to find cooperation partners and to develop their curiosity regarding projects which implement the European Youth Strategy in rural areas, by visiting several projects, which are driven by a self-sufficient and alternative approach to life. During this 8-day residence, 6 intercultural and interdisciplinary coaches will accompany them.The coaches will guide the group through several training sessions and intercultural learning-methods and will develop in small groups project drafts for subsequent projects with the participating young adults. One aim of the project is to continuously keep the project-locations running, which are in development in Croatia / Lika in September 2016 and in Germany / Brandenburg in spring 2017, and to transfer the knowledge, the ideas and methods of informal learning gained in the project for the participating young adults into own projects of the participating young adults, which cooperate with each other. This project is considered to be a contribution to creating new perspectives in the specific field of the transition between school / professional education and job life, in form of creating youth exchange programs in Europe. Furthermore it aims to develop youth-work-networks and to strengthen the professional profiles of youth-workers in their work with unprivileged young people especially in structurally less developed regions. Accompanying an analysis of the specific needs of each region will be created and a bilingual handbook will be developed for practical use of different methods for future youth exchanges in rural areas.“Back to the Roots” will take place in areas and associated buildings, which are given to the 2 associations MIKUB and OU Podum for longterm use. In the surrounding area of the city Otocac (Croatia), these locations are a former living-house and an old school, where the consequences of the war are still omnipresent. In Brandenburg (Germany) the project will take place in a former school.The preliminary draft of the daily program will be presented to the participants and updated in exchange with them. The specifically regional problems of vacancy and lack of prospects of young people are introduced in small (discursive) presentations.It will be followed by methods of team building, continuing with input and exchange on the topic of “Welcoming Culture in the Rural Region”. The European Youth Strategy will be introduced to the participants. Finally, strategies of its implementation in rural areas will be discussed and presented. Two linguistic pedagogues will be part of the whole project. Local visits to extracurricular and school facilities and daily reflection sessions reflected the acquired learning steps of the participants are also part of the methodological work. The project “Back to the roots” aims at increasing the education, motivation and commitment of the participants to spread the ideas of the European Youth Strategy and practices of non-formal methods in their surrounding and work and at addressing local organizations and decision-makers to support such interdisciplinary projects.The long-term goal is to establish and strengthen sustainably international cooperation within the field of youth work and to generate improved, qualified European partnerships successively within it. By means of constant exchange and integration of international young adults into comparable projects – ideally at the two project locations – a broad impact in this sense will be achieved.The international coaches and participants of the project will be encouraged and capacitated to start own projects in their home regions. In the future, it is young people without special support, who will be addressed in our practical and creative project locations