The unemployment rate for youth in the EU under the age of 25 is at staggering 22.9%. Such extreme unemployment has a negative effect on their future employability and self-esteem, increasing their risk of poverty, deskilling and social exclusion. It affects the role the young people have in the society and presents an economic burden on state finances, producing a negative effect on economic growth and productivity. As one of the key issues in the EU, youth unemployment is often discussed without sufficient participation of the young people themselves, which adds to the feeling among the youth that their situation is given, and that the causes and the scale of the problem are too great and too far removed from their sphere of influence. This feeling leads to a loss of motivation and active participation in the society, further increasing the threat of cultural, economic and social exclusion. Through an innovative training program in mobile journalism, the project will contribute to the empowerment and active citizenship of young people, increasing their capacity for political and social participation. Through the creation of the European Youth News Exchange (Y-NEX) service, the project will enable young people to connect with the general public, express their opinions and have an influence on the political and social processes affecting their lives. The first objective of the project is to develop a new training program and MOOC in mobile journalism. The program will consist of six modules: 1) Media Literacy and Human Rights, 2) Mobile Journalism Technology, 3) Mobile Journalism Storytelling, 4) Mobile Journalism Production, 5) Intellectual Property Rights, 6) Digital Entrepreneurship. Each module will present a 16-20 hour learner workload in blended learning format, with maximum total program duration of 120 hours. The second objective is to develop the European Youth News Exchange (Y-NEX) as a service which will draw on the news-gathering and production resources of all the youth trained in mobile journalism, and be used for dissemination and exchange of news in text, photo, audio and video formats - created by the youth, for the youth. The first target group of the project includes youth workers and staff active in education, which will be trained as trainers and act as multipliers in youth empowerment. The second target group includes high-school pupils, students, trainees, volunteers and unemployed young people who will be trained in mobile journalism. The project aims at training 18 trainers who will pilot the mobile journalism program with 150 youth participants in partner countries. Another 150 youth participants will be included in the piloting of the MOOC. The project consortium is formed by civil, private and public sector organizations from Croatia, Belgium, Ireland and Spain, including a national public broadcaster and three higher education institutions. As such it combines vast experience in education and training, youth-work, project management, media and information literacy, audio-visual production, information and communication technologies and cross-media publishing. The planned duration of the project is 24 months. It will be implemented in 3 stages. Stage 1 will focus on the production of the Mobile Journalism Curriculum. Stage 2 will be dedicated to training the trainers and the production of the Mobile Journalism MOOC. Stage 3 will focus on launching the Y-NEX service and piloting the program with the youth, who will produce the news and disseminate it through the Y-NEX service and social media as the final learning outcome. Implementation of the project will empower young people for participation in society and active citizenship. The developed training program will be used by the project partners in their regular training activities, while the developed MOOC will be available to the general public, both promoting and fostering citizen journalism. The new Y-NEX service will enable youth to create, publish and disseminate news, providing an open service for citizen journalism and cultural exchange. The European Youth News Exchange will be promoted through a final project conference in Croatia with three multiplier events in Belgium, Ireland and Spain. These forums will host over 500 participants interested in exploitation of the European Youth News Exchange. The dissemination of the project results will include coverage by youth/student media and national public broadcasting services in project countries, as well as distribution through the European Broadcasting Union’s Eurovision network and European Association of Regional Television, reaching millions of viewers throughout the EU.