The Short Course “Overcoming Walls” - taking place in Burg Stargard from July 31 to August 16, 2015 - aims to reduce prejudice and exclusion in the European context with a focus on educational disadvantage and socio-economic injustice. This will be achieved by bringing together 60 participants from a wide variety of backgrounds, and helping them to deepen their understanding of past and present walls, both physical and mental, and challenging their prejudice and stereotypes. The participants will come from 12 countries in Europe and its neighborhood, mostly from countries that have a specific history of walls - be they overcome or still strong - that are interesting for others to learn about. They are recruited through UWC partner organisations, supported by Teach For All organisations in recruiting a significant number of participants facing economic and educational challenges. Through a variety of non-formal learning methods, participants will broaden their understanding of key concepts in social change (justice, equality, power) and the most prominent sources for exclusion (ethnic and religious differences, socio-economic factors, perceived migration pressures). They will challenge their own beliefs, while learning to express their experiences and opinions in a constructive manner. The methodology used focuses on empowerment, and on helping young people develop concrete skills and the confidence to effect changes they want to see in their communities. Key components that exemplify the approach are daily global concerns sessions, in which participants present and discuss issues and challenges that they face in their home communities, after being coached by the trainers in how to build an engaging session around their chosen topic. Similarly, groups of participants will engage in a couple of days of project work where they construct a section for a final public exhibition around a given theme by conducting research, developing their key messages and finding an innovative and engaging way to communicate them. Such methods are complemented by more traditional workshop formats, as well as by highly focussed excursions and community interaction opportunities. The participants will leave the course as more aware, self-reflected and empowered individuals. They will have encountered an exceptionally broad range of different and diverging perspectives, which will give them a lasting understanding of diversity, a guard against prejudice and an appreciation of the complexity of the world, as well as its potential for betterment. The project will also positively impact the partner organisations, who will build more capacity to implement their own projects and carry learnings beyond European boundaries and the UWC network. The UWC movement will benefit from this Short Course because it will strengthen the role of non-formal education and carry its message and ideals to a very broad range of people, thus developing more agents for change in accordance with the UWC mission. "Overcoming Walls!" will also benefit its host region by supporting dialogue between very different groups of the local population - for which reason we have decided to locate it in a region with substantial xenophobic tendencies. Thus, the course will have a transformative impact on all stakeholder groups involved and hopefully also contribute long term to increased cooperation between European and neighbouring youth initiatives to work against societal barriers and towards more peace, understanding and cooperation.