The UWC Short Course “Building a Sustainable Future” is planned against the background of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will come into action in 2016 and give an impetus to rethink development across all countries - including Europe. This Course is inspired by these goals and wants to support their realization by engaging European youth around them. The Course follows a successful Short Course in 2015 in Burg Stargard where 10 young facilitators from Robert Bosch College, a United World College in Freiburg, shaped the program and decided to build on that empowering experience and launch the 4th German Short Course to be held at the college, and in the city that is a sustainability leader in Germany. The Course aims to look at various dimensions of sustainability (mainly environmental, social and economical) and bring young people from Europe and its neighborhood together to debate the SDGs and take action based on them, both during the course and afterwards in their home communities. Beyond environmental sustainability, the program will consider ways of building sustainable diverse societies, which also means finding ways of dealing with migration and particularly the current refugee streams. Moreover, the mission of UWC - to make education a force for peace - will be a guiding principle when thinking about how sustainable development can lead to sustainable peace. Being situated at the border between France and Germany, the project wants to contribute towards successful conflict transformation by exploring that example and bringing together countries, such as Bosnia and Croatia, who can share more recent experiences with conflict. Overall, we aim to use the SDGs to enable participants to think of the changes they want to see in their societies, and to empower them to take action in the areas they deem most relevant.The course is taking place in July and August 2016, with 60 participants from 12 partner countries all over the European region. The 16-18 year old participants will be selected according to their interest in the topics and willingness to experience such a diverse group of people and challenging program. The selection aims to create a deliberate diversity, both in terms of ethnicity but also in terms of social class and to this end the project collaborates with Teach for All organizations during participant selection.During the course, participants get to experience and discuss issues linked to sustainability in non-formal learning settings, including interactive workshops, self-led projects, role plays, debates and guided reflection activities. Moreover, the program will include lectures by guest speakers and experts in their fields, as well as excursions to visit European Institutions as well as local civil society initiatives. This all aims to cater to different learning needs and has been proven to lead to good results. As impact assessment is important for continuous development, a comprehensive evaluation system has been developed, which includes a detailed evaluation by the participants as well as by the coordinating team. This generates crucial learnings for next projects, and facilitates the knowledge and capacity transfer to future teams, on which this project is already built. To trace medium term impact, the project stays in touch with participants through social media and records projects that arise out of short courses. A future goal is to assess this long term impact in a more systematic manner.The envisioned results include that the participants gain a better understanding of the challenges faced in the field of sustainable development in the European region and also that they feel inspired and empowered to tackle these challenges. We aim to support the participants in forming their own projects and hope that as a result of the course, many small projects will take place across Europe. Based on past feedback, another important result is the appreciation of diversity and reduction of stereotypes that invariably occurs when young people forge, sometimes life-long, friendships with people from at least 12 different countries. This will contribute to a better understanding of different people and cultures, which is essential to the peaceful functioning of Europe. Through interaction with the local community and coverage of the program in local as well as internationally accessible media (e.g. newspapers and blog), the Course will have a broader impact on many people who will be inspired by the project and may also decide to take action based on their encounters with the participants and/or the course through media. In general, the course aims to make a contribution towards long term sustainable peace and development in Europe by engaging energetic young people and potential leaders into the SDG discourse, bringing them together and empowering them.