Social empowerment for youth 2015 had 2 parts: 1. Preparatory / network planning meeting, 10 participants, 13.-16.2.2015 - Hyvärilä Youth Centre (Finland, Norway, Poland, Germany) involving the youth workers and key persons from each partner organisation. The objectives of the planning meeting are: - Final planning and preparations for youth exchange in March - Getting familiar with the surroundings and action plans of the youth exchange - Setting up concrete steps and objectives to get the full potential - Discussing the future cooperation and aims of the network, setting up new proposals with aims to increase the impact 2. Social Empowerment for youth 2015 -youth exchange, that brought together 43 participants (Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland) from 22.3-31.3.2015, in Hyvärilä Youth Centre, Nurmes, Finland. The young people involved i this project all fall under the category & young people with fewer opportunities in their local / regional realities. The groups that the partners work with all face challenges, such as economical, social, and health related challenges that in many cases are also over generational. Young people involved in the forms of social youth work in each partner country have little or no opportunities and/or motivation to experience such things as travelling and active participation / making a difference. These barriers are made by both, the young people subjective views / own attitude, as well as the barriers created by the surrounding community / society. In many cases the young people have drifted in to cycles of negativity, accompanied by excluding social behavior, that the partner organisations daily work, as well as this particular project aims to break. The young people their selves have expressed that they see little possibilities or control to change their own paths in their every day realities The aim of the project is to change this, and to offer positive experiences and perspective for young people in order to improve their skills, knowledge and attitude linking to their own needs and the process of their own social inclusion / empowerment. Based on this context, the Social Empowerment for youth 2015 has been develop to continue the previous cooperation of the organisations and their young people involved. The youth exchange tackles the aims through the following concrete objectives: - Experiencing internationality and exposure to other cultures, finding peers and support over local / national boarders - Motivating and discovering young people's interests and finding new perspective through positive achievements and experiences - Creating a safe and trusting environment to discuss, share about the issues and challenges young people face on day-to-day basis - and to learn new skills, knowledge and attitudes to see behind the meadow - Raising self-esteem and the feeling of self-worth through disrupting the negative cycles of the participants The activities carried out and planned together with the young people and youth workers combined methods of non-formal education and experimental learning to reach the projects objectives.