From the 31th of October until the 5th of November 2016 60 youngsters at the age of 15 and 16 years will come to Trebnitz to participate in an international youth encounter a creativity workshop. They will come from Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia. The topic will be “Minorities and cultural identity in Europe”. Half of the participants will come from national or ethnic minorities itself, the other half will be members of the majority society, that have daily/regularily contact to minorities. . It will be the Sorbish living in Germany, Russians from Lithuania, Romas from Poland and Slovakia. Within 4 different workshops the young people will tackle the project topic. On the one hand the fostering of regional and cultural identity as well as the implementation of European minority legislation will be part of the programme, on the other hand the project will be about intercultural learning, European values, youthempowerment and motivation for social commitment. The project sees itself in the sence of participation and active European citizenship and as a contribution to the prevention of exclusion, xenophobia and rasicm and the appreciation of diversity within the European societies, as expressed in the Paris EU-Declaration 2015 of th education ministers and the Erasmus plus youth inclusion and diversity strategy. Thproject s basedon ideas and experiences of previous youth projects. National and ethnic minorities are protected by different EU-legislation. In the national reality theses rights are implemented on different quality levels. From the actual equality for the Sorbish in Germany and the assimilation of Russians in Lithuania to nearly total exclusion and discrimination of Romas in Slovakia. The perception of minorities is often based on prejudices and stereotypes. If a society is really democratic can not only be seen by the government of the majority but by the way the majority is interacting with their minority. Members of minorities dispose verifiable of special civic and intercultural competences, which qualifies them as mediators and bridgebuilders. One of the objectives of the project is to foster the social position of minorities and the solidarity between them and the perception of the majority society. We will focus especially on the Romas, which have the most difficulties within our societies to be respected. A two days preparatory meeting in Trebnitz in September 2016 will be about the definition of the learning results, organisatorial and thematic agreement. This meeting will also be the opportunity to involve the partners and the young participants in the content alignment and the preparation of the project.Within the project we will offer an thematic introduction based on the Betzavta methode. This will help us to highlight the equality of all humans as an universal right and as an fundamental value of the European coexistence. Afterwords we will start parallel the four creative workshops. This will be Film, Graffiti, Fashion and Dancing. In every workshop the young participants will have the possibility to express in a creative way their experiences from their special living environment between tradition an modernity. Together with other minorities they will be able to look at their life from a new perspective. At the end we will have a public presentation of the project results in front of political and cultural representatives from the participation countries and minorities. This will be also the opportunity to discuss with them about euroepan values, human rights, diversity and integration . The non-formal approach will enable the participants to deal with the issues in a youth adequate and life world experienced way. So we will forster the key competences and make self effectiveness experiences. The international setting is the basis for global and intercultural learning. The language animation will strengthen n the language competences.Furthermore the project will be held basically in English. We will provide knowledgeabout social competences as critical thinking, diversity, respect, appreciation as shields against racism, xenophobia and exclusion. The project will be certified by the youthpass in order to document the learning process and make it transparent for the participants. We will publish the project results so that others will have the possibility to learn from this experience. The project is a step forward for the participating organizations and schools on their way to europeanisation and internationalisation, to implement a internal diversity strategy and to lean more about youth adequate non-formal learning methods..