The Hans-Wendt-Foundation is an independent child and youth welfare organization from Bremen. In this context, it has been active in international youth work for 15 years. Together with the European partners from Avilés (Spain) and Vizela (Portugal) the cooperation of the last years was evaluated and the project "Youth Sparkles" was planned. A new partner from Dublin (Ireland) could be won for participation. In this project, a long-term learning process for the target group "young people with low opportunities" should be initiated through several activities on European and on local level, which should extend over a period of 18 months. The project refers to the new EU strategy, which focuses on the three areas "engage, empower and connect". An essential part of the day-to-day work of our organizations is to enable young people to achieve greater participation in social, civic, professional and political life, especially young people with fewer opportunities, with whom we work on a daily basis. The project kicked off with a youth meeting in Portugal in summer 2019, where groups from four countries met to discuss proposed topics such as inclusion, diversity, etc., but also to identify and work on their own topics. The essential goal of this activity was for young people to come together for a broader joint engagement at the local level (engage) and to formulate issues important to them that they want to address (empower). The local work was an indirect part of the project, but its results were essential for further activities because they were to be used in the planning of the second youth encounter, which was planned for summer 2020 in Bremen. A final youth encounter was planned for fall 2020 in Avilés. Unfortunately, the pandemic came in 2020, which changed the original project plan. The Irish partner withdrew from the project due to the pandemic. The local projects could be implemented despite the pandemic within the framework of solidarity projects of three partner organizations. Both the project and the solidarity projects could be extended, so that it was possible to implement a final youth encounter in Avilés in April 2022. In this meeting, the results of the solidarity projects were exchanged (connect) and the experiences made; learning outcomes, competences were evaluated. Then the young people dealt with current issues that concern them. Besides the pandemic and the war, issues such as education, mental health and the future were the central topics for them. These topics and the experiences will be taken away to develop further projects.