The G.R.O.W.T.H. for EUROPE took place in a small rural village named Verteneglio/Brtonigla, inIstria region in Republic of Croatia. The village is situated in the north-west part of the region, veryclose to the Italian and Slovenian border and is famous as "the most Italian village" in bilingual Istria.Trough the last decade it is undergoing a vast development fostering sustainability, youth activeparticipation in policy making, rural tourism as emerging economy and rising the awareness of theEuropean topics, regarding the forthcoming accession of Croatia in the EU. Local Democracy Agencyworks on rural development and youth policy issues tightly with local authorities and NGOs and forsecond year has involved volunteers in this cooperation activities through the group EVS project.Within this project French promoter the Sending Organization (SO) Youth Information Center of Brest(BIJ) sent two french volunteers (Camille Viguier-Philippe and Pier-Yves Mingant) and Germanpromoter SO Ev. Schulerinnen – und Schulerarbeit in westfalen (SO) sent one German volunteer(Rebecca Reissberg) to Croatian Hosting Organization (HO) Agencija Localne Democracije (ADL)/Local democracy Agency (LDA) in Verteneglio for a service that last for eleven months (06.09.10 –06.08.11). The service gave the volunteers various possibilities to acquire new skills and to improvetheir knowledge and professional skills. They were also followed into their working integration bytaking part in the activities ruled by LDA; They were involved in the social life of the local communityand its institutions, such as:➒ kindergarten Kalimero- by helping the staff with the daily activities;➒ tourist office - by supporting the organization of local events; translation of documents andpublications into French and German;➒ Italian community in the village – by providing lessons in French and German for the local people;➒ Local Democracy Agency - support numerous projects regarding the promotion of Europeanprograms (Youth in Action, EVS, Europe for Citizens) and celebration of many internationalcelebrations: International day of environment; European day of Langauges, many local seasoncelebrations;➒ learning new languages: Italian and Croatian, provided by the LDA that help the faster integrationinto the community;➒ cooperation with the local schools ( in Verteneglio, Buje, Umag, Cittanova) and presentation ondifferent European topics;- supported to explore our region and acquire knowledge on the geography and culture of Istria(cross border region for the EU) in their free time.