Context:The Black Sea is facing severe challenges accordingly to the Strategic Action Plan for the Environmental Protection and Rehabilitation of the Black Sea, adopted in Sofia, Bulgaria, 17 April 2009 by the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution. The Plan identifies four priority transnational problems: eutrophication/nutrient enrichment; changes in marine living resources; chemical pollution (including oil); and biodiversity/habitat changes, including alien species introduction. The general public from Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Turkey possesses scarce knowledge about this problems and its involvement in solving them is even scarcer. In all these countries the involvement of young people in the protection of the Black Sea and its coastal area is limited to small-scale actions of cleaning beaches or raising awareness campaigns.Goal: Organising a transnational youth meeting with of 10 days (16-25.09.2016) in Năvodari, Romania. The seminar will reunite 40 young people from four partner organisations from Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Turkey (coordinated by 6 project team members) with six policy-makers and experts (Representatives of the Romanian Parliament and Government, Representatives of the Environment and Education Ministries from Turkey and Bulgaria and experts on the protection of sea and coastal areas). The goal of the seminar is to facilitate a structured dialogue between the young participants and the policy-makers that will set the basis of a policy draft that will involve more the young people in the decision-making and the raising awareness of the protection of the Black Sea transnational policies. The project aims to empower the young participants as well as the policy-makers by switching from a theoretical approach to a hands-on one in which young people work together with policy-makers in order to create a youth policy of transnational interest.Objectives:1. Raising the level of knowledge, abilities and attitudes of the 40 participants aged 18-30 from the four participating countries with regards to the importance and their active involvement in the protection of the Black Sea..2. Raising the level of knowledge of the six policy-makers and experts with regards to the importance of including young people in the decision-making and policy creation processes.3. Realisation of a youth policy draft on the involvement of the youths in the environmental protection of the Black Sea that will be disseminated to the target groups from the participating countries (200 young people aged 18-30 and 12 policy-makers), as a first step towards the inclusion of the Black Sea protection in the national youth policies of the four partner countries.4. Raising the level of interest of our young participants towards future involvement in policy drafting. Description of activity:I. Problem Identification (Jan-Feb 2017): the participants will gather data about the de facto situation in all the participating countries from local high schools –and universities about the involvement of young people in the Black Sea environment protection policies and potential approaches on how to increase their involvment.II. Data analysis (Mar-Apr2017) in each national group the participants will analyze the benefits and the costs that such a policy might involve.III. Mobility of the project - A1 (28 Apr – 7 May 2017)IV. Presentation of the policy draft to decision makers in all the participating countries by visits to the Local Prefectures and debating for a policy reform based on the draft created during the mobility.V. Monitoring of the policy reform and evaluation of its impact in all the four participating countriesMethodology:In order to fulfill our activities we make full use of participative nonformal educational methods like: animation of the participants, role play, Environmental Art Exhibition, EcoBatucada, learning by doing, reflexion sessions; individual learning; active participation in group activities; public speaking. Results and impact:This project will contribute to the personal development of the participants by influencing them to actively involve in the youth policies. Our participants will be actively involved in the dissemination process and will disseminate information about our project and the Erasmus+ programme. We will create a brochure, a digital portal and a youth policy draft. Our project will have impact on young people and policy-makers from decentralised levels.Long-term results:Our project in its European and international dimension is closely linked with the targets of the Europe 2020 strategy in the field of environmental protection. By promoting our youth policy draft online and by involving young people in solving the problem we aim to have a medium and long-term contribution to empower young people to foster the Black Sea’s environmental protection.