The “Speak it Up!” training course is a three full days (5 days including travel) event that will take place in Reykjavik, between 19-23 April 2017, involving 23 European Scout organisations. The event will welcome 45 participants (aged 18 to 30) from 19 countries and 5 members of the planning team. The training course is dedicated to young spokespersons of youth organisations, treating topics connected to the field of external relations, media relations and public speakingThis project will help to strengthen the international dimension of the organisations involved, media literacy and intercultural competence of the participants. It will also prevent prejudices and stereotypes as the participants will be given the opportunity to share their own opinions and experiences. The project seeks to address the above mentioned issues, as well as the following needs:- enhance the visibility of youth organisations from rural areas, as they are lacking the skills and knowledge on how to pitch stories towards media and external partners;- support youth workers and young members in developing their knowledge on how to deliver coherent and solid messages that adhere to the real vision of their organisation- support youth organisations to reach out to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds or areas: they need to have access to this information and to know about the existence of such entities. The “Speak it Up!” project is designed to help youth workers maximize opportunities to educate the media, gain visibility for their activities and learn how to communicate the vision and mission of their organisations to the external world.In line with this, the objectives of this project are as follows:O1.Increase the skills and capacities of young spokespersons in working with the media and external relations, and thus it increase their chances on the labour market;O2. Raise public awareness about specifics and challenges of youth work in all partner countries;O3. Increase competences of young spokespersons in establishing long-lasting and close relations with the media;O4. Enhance intercultural learning and understanding;O5. Set the basis of an international network of young spokespersons from diverse European countries, which can be further enhanced;O6. Help ensure a consistent message related to youth work, its impact and the issues it is facing is delivered to the media so that it can be used to influence the public opinions and policies on education and youth work. In what concerns the impact on the participants, we expect to see that they will gain and/or improve their knowledge and skills in relation to external communication, public speaking and ethic in media relations (e.g. how to provide unbiased visibility to the activities of your organisation, how to deliver solid and newsworthy messages, how to fight stereotypes related to Scout activities) and how to raise public awareness on the value of youth organisations. The participants will grow as professional youth workers, who are aware of the impact on society their work can have and will be able to exert more self-reflection on their media relations. In what concerns the parnters, the participating organisations will get new experience of management of an international project and long-term cooperation of these organizations will be thus strengthened. Since the main target group of the project are young spokespersons, the expected long-term effect of the “Speak it Up!” project is the achievement of an effective and newsworthy media coverage for youth organisations. Democratic values, active participation, youth empowerment and intercultural understanding can be thus strengthened.