The origins of this project come from the initiative of a group of young people in Orivesi, Finland in Spring 2018. The youth worker from Orivesi had visited Marttinen international network meeting, and heard about the possibility for setting up a Erasmus+ projects. The youth worker introduced the idea to the local youth and in the first meetings held in the municipality of Orivesi 44 young people were present and interested in the international idea. Over the summer and autumn, a group was formed who started to work on the idea of creating a youth exchange, firstly in Finland, and then next year aiming to go abroad. The partners were found, and each group of young people have been working on a common google document and discussing online. The question from their side directly to the question "why do we want / why do we need this project?": Finland answers: We want to see the world, its diversity, make new friends and have fun together. We need youth exchange because we want to learn to understand other countries, their culture and way of life. And we also want to learn new languages and improve our english. We want to make new experiences and lovely memories. We would like to throw ourselves and be able to laugh at ourselves. Iceland answers: We want to meet new people from different countries, try new experiences and see all kinds of culture. We are really interested in improving our english and seeing what kids from other countries are up to. We want to try something new and explore new, exciting things. We also “need” the good weather, get away from the cold and finally get some sunshine. Portugal answers: As you all now, in Portugal we have a very good weather, but sometimes it can be boring. So we would like to travel to a new country, not to just «enjoy the weather», but also to make new friendships and try news types of food and sports. Ireland answers: We would love to see Finland and not just on a map. Our group is always excited to meet new people from different areas. We are open to helping the young people from other countries improve their English as it is our first language. We need to see how teenagers in other countries live their everyday lives as Moville is a very small village. Some people in our group have never left Ireland or even been on a plane. What has also been discussed in the groups online chats is i.e. the topics of: - Learning about different opportinities, and perhaps the barrier to think of internatinality in the future (in example for school, exchanges etc) becomes lower - It will be good for future and for example education (for CV, being able to work with international people etc.) - This will be a "cool thing to do!" - Becoming more interested and curious about other cultures. On top of this, all groups also were also expressing what kind of "topics or issues" they would like to talk about during the activity, and here is a summary of that anwered by the groups (mixed from all groups answers): "Everything possible for example animals, feelings, stereotypes, hobbies. What do young people do on a daily basis, learn each others language, to know what they do during their leisure time, and their hobbies. We love talking about food, and want to know everyones favorite food. We want to know about their school and their after school activities, social life, are there any school parties. We want to know their culture, how they live and their customs. How is their life different from ours. Soccer, what kind of sports they like. What kind of music they listen to, what kind of phone they have, especially about food, stereotypes, hobbies, school, daily basis, music, lifestyle, culture and sports. We would like to talk to the young people from other countries to learn about their everyday lives, what they enjoy doing and what opportunities exist for them in their area. We are interested in their hobbies, pets, sports, social life and music tastes. From these discussions and the online skype meetings with each partner came, to focus especially on the topic of "Exchanging Hobbies". The young people agreed that if we focus on this theme (that we also mentioned many times in the google docs and discussions) we would be able to: - Have a topic that everyone surely has a contact with one way or another (what ever your hobby is, everyone has one!) - It is safe and something that everyone is motivated and interested to show, explain and introduce - There can be very different hobbies: traditional, new, virtual, classical etc. - It is an opportunity to find new hobbies - It is a great way to be able to interact with people from other country even without language. - A lot of the topics that were mentioned by all the groups could be included in to the workshops and discussions and doing together.