Context/background of project:For the past few years European youth, including young people from the Baltic States, has faced difficulties arisen from mass-media and the information acquired from on-line analysis. Some of the problems include European values identification, mirroring of political and social events, and the issues relating to migrants.This is why it is very important that young people develop critical thinking skills, as well as the ability to think independently and analyze information. They should develop the sense of citizenship, as well as active position in life, so that they would be ready to take responsibility for processes in our society.Objectives of your project:Our objective is to promote critical thinking in young people. This would help them analyze information obtained and identify techniques with which public opinions are manipulated. Critical thinking would also help young workers to develop the expertise and set the basic social values. This in turn would help to analyze media’s perspective on some of the current issues, such as European values and the questions of immigrants and refugee as well as promote active participation and inclusion.Number and profile of participants:38 young people (aged 15 – 24) from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania will take part in the exchange programme. They would have already participated or are passionate about youth organizations. They are keen to develop their critical thinking abilities as well as to investigate techniques that mass media uses to manipulate people’s opinions. They would learn to recognize those and develop their active participation in social processes.Methodology to be used in carrying out the project:The project will be mainly based on activities taken from non-formal education methodology. Group work, panel discussions, role games and simulations will be key activities. There will also be daily feedback and overall feedback, presentations from field experts, visual and video materials creation.Description of activities:Seven months long project (May-November 2016) consists of three main stages of activities. The first stage will involve selecting 38 participants. After the selection each of the three organizations will be divided into groups, each group tasked with planning some of the events. An organizational meeting will be held in Riga on June 2-3 to finalize the program. The second stage is a one week long exchange held in Latvia between July 29 and August 5, 2016. The exchange participants will employ methods of informal education to examine such topics as development of critical thinking, information assessment skills, conformism and social changes resulting from deliberate manipulation, intercultural communication, civic action and consciousness, and stereotypes and appearances, as well as study mass media coverage of important matters, e.g. the refugee crisis and European values. Exchange participants will also create a poster or a video containing a visual message. In the final stage of the project the participants will conduct events in their educational institutions and an open-air exhibition will be set up to showcase photographs created during the project.A short description of the results and impact envisaged and finally the potential longer term benefits:Acting upon the project, a brochure about media manipulation will be produced. One of the exchange practices will consist of making a film and a series of photographs about relevant problems in modern society, which then will be presented at the "photo development" event in autumn. A Facebook page will be created to demonstrate the results of the project, and the exchange participants will stage events in their educational institutions. Taking part in the project will allow the exchange participants to accept a more active role and engage their peers as well as to realize their ideas in other projects.