When we organize youth projects and volunteering camps in the countryside, it can sometimes feel like a parallel universe: Youth from all around Europe engages in an intense intercultural exchange, while there is not necessarily a lot of interaction with the local community. We want international youth projects to have positive effects on their immediate surroundings, to counter stereotypes, to reach target groups we usually don’t reach with peace projects, to contribute to a positive and sustainable rural development and to give youth access to a more diverse image of what the place they are visiting is like. Connected to this, we want youth in rural areas with geographical obstacles to have the opportunity to participate in international youth projects and to gain from this experience and we want to strengthen our organisations’ capabilities of reaching this group of youth with fewer opportunities. The objectives of the project were the following: - to exchange tools, methods and approaches to increase the local impact of international volunteering and youth projects and to promote peace, tolerance and active citizenship in the countryside - to share communication strategies and institutional ways to reach more youth from remote areas - to create, improve and share non-formal education methods on interactions between international volunteers and local inhabitants - to network between the organisations involved in this application - to organize a youth exchange where the methods and tools shared at the seminar will be applied - to create a space of exchange, mutual understanding, solidarity and learning for youth with fewer geographical opportunities from different European countries - to create a stronger discourse about the need to create a local impact with international volunteering and youth projects within the international voluntary service movement by creating a manual on the topic