From July 2014 until December 2015 “Youth Empowerment” is going to be the key topic of the upcoming trio presidencies and therefore the topic of the structured dialogue on the EU-level. The national working group for the structured dialogue in Austria is going to address the topic by developing measures that enhance the participation of young people to reach a better inclusion of their opinions. In the framework of the project bOJA – the “Nationwide Network for Open Youth Work” is planning to conduct consultations in the form of workshop events with youngsters to focus on the topic “Youth Empowerment” with the aim of developing individual opinions. It is evident that young, disadvantaged people have more difficult access to participatory processes in society and are less experienced in articulating their opinion or in engaging with socio-politically relevant issues. The setting of Open Youth work offers a safe experimental space, where youngsters are able to experience and to discuss (new) topics, where opinions can be developed, exchanged and represented to the outside world. In the framework of the project 10 Open Youth Work organizations (Youth Centers, Mobile Youth Work) will be selected to set activities in their respective Open Youth Work settings that would stimulate a debate on “Empowerment” in order to collect opinions and perspectives of youngsters on the focus topic. Since Open Youth Work is a rich ground in terms of methodology in the context of participation, no methodological requirements will be made for the project partners. The organizations involved are free to select an appropriate method that works in their context. The aim is to obtain a variety of methods that might lead to diverse results. The youth workers involved in the project will be invited to participate in the trainings of the Austrian youth association (BJV) in advance to learn more about the context and new methods as well as to exchange opinions with other practitioners active in Youth Work outside of school. 112 girls and boys shall be reached with the activities. On the one hand the aims of the project relate to the process of the structured dialogue, on the other hand to the participating youth. This approach shall lead to a systematic inclusion of youngsters from the Open Youth Work context into the process of the structured dialogue. Through the project the young participants will profit in many ways, regarding their cognitive and communicative development, their self efficient expectations and particularly regarding their own interest in participatory processes especially in the political context.