In the first two stages of the current Structured Dialogue for Youth Empowerment and Political Participation with the theme 'Empowerment of Young People' , it was stressed out that participation should be enabled for all young people, that their involvement should be appreciated and that particularly disadvantaged young people should be empowered for participation. In this project we aim to place a particular focus on empowerment and participation of young people of migrant background, in particular of African backgrounds. This focus evolves from the finding that migrant youth, and in particular youth with African backgrounds, so far have unequal chances for participation in societies of EU countries. Besides opportunities for participation in fields such as education, the labor market, entrepreneurship, culture and the media, this is particular true for the political field. At the same time, chances for youth participation are in some countries higher (e.g. United Kingdom) than in others (e.g. Germany). This marginalization not only leads to comparatively low participation rates in the above fields but is also believed to be connected with phenomenas such as extremism and radicalization. Shared reasons for low participation of youth with African backgrounds in Germany and the UK include: - The general lack of ethnic participation in politics. - The fact that youth of African backgrounds are particularly effected by different forms of prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination and xenophobia on behalf of the majority population, which impacts their chances for participation considerably negative. - The phenomena that members of this group are not as much represented in public and political positions, which besides the representative function is believed to have a role model function impacting the younger generation's aspirations and empowerment. Because of these peculiarities we believe that it is necessary to add further detail to the discussion and resulting documents which have been developed in the first two stages of the ongoing Structured Dialogue in order to consider the specific needs and potentials of youth with African backgrounds for enabling their equal participation chances, creating the structures that allow and appreciate their participation and empower them to take advantage of their opportunities for participation in European societies, and in particular in Germany and the UK. The project will be realised through a cooperation of three partners: Farafina Institute (German applicant), AKOMA Bildung & Kultur (German partner), and African Caribbean Diversity (UK partner), as well as two cooperative organisations in Germany: African Youth Foundation and Nuremberg Initiative for Africa. The main intention and approach of the project activities is to discuss the outcomes of the previous stages of the ongoing Structured Dialogue, concretise these outcomes for the needs and potentials of youth with African background, formulate recommendations on this basis and plan a concrete action for empowering the target group for political participation through a follow-up project. This will be realised through three transnational meetings in Berlin and London among British and German youth with African backgrounds, as well as policy makers. Each meeting will be accompanied by cultural sessions. Furthermore expert interviews with representatives of organisations of young people with African backgrounds as well as an online survey among the target group in Germany and the UK will be conducted. All activities of the project will be conducted within a participatory process including young people with African background, the applicant and partner organisations and policy makers. The participating young people will: - be strengthened in their awareness of potentials and opportunities of political participation, - become more aware of and involved in the ongoing activities of the Structured Dialogue, - reflect on the documents and resolutions so far developed in the ongoing round of Structured Dialogue and on this basis identify the specific needs and potentials of young people with an African background for political participation and enrich the ongoing Structured Dialogue with resulting recommendations, - be empowered in their ability to communicate and discuss issues of relevance for them with policy makers, - exchange with other youth, exchange experience in political participation and learn from each other, - learn ways of expressing views and debating controversial views through music, - network among each other and possibly find ways of joint political particpation, - plan an action based on the developed recommendations which will be aimed to be realised through a follow-up project. The project results will be disseminated through the networks of the partners and cooperating organisations, through the involved policy makers, and will be communicated to the national and EC Erasmus+ contact points.