Rural depopulation is affecting the access of food and materials for everyone in Europe. As a reaction to this, we wanted with the project "Work hand in hand - create your land" show young people the possibilities of working together to creating a more sustainable future on the countryside. The activities were a youth exchange (A1) and the advanced planning visit for the youth exchange (A2). Both activities were held in Upper Austria. The youth exchange took place at the Agricultural school in Lambach. The partners involved were from the countries Austria, Ireland, United Kingdom, Germany, Slovenia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Estonia and Latvia. Seven partners sent one person to the advance planning visit (A2) and all partners sent four participants and one group leader to the youth exchange (A1). Therefore A1 had 50 and A2 7 Erasmus+ supported participants. All partners run activities in rural areas. A1, the youth exchange, took place 1st-8th of August 2015 and A2, the advanced planning visit took place the 24th-27th of April 2015, including arrival and departure day. The aim of this youth exchange was to increase rural young people's active citizenship as a way to keep the countryside vivid. The objectives were that the participants: -get aware of the current situation of European rural development, -share good practice about community activation projects and experience volunteering on this field, -get inspired by creative entrepreneurship and innovative farming and reflect on their role in running the community, -live and work in a local family to truly understand the reality there, -explore in what way culture and sports help to keep the community attractive, and -support each other to take action for a vivid European countryside. The participants along the week worked in pairs and different size of internationally mixed groups, as well as individually and in country groups.