OUR REASON TO CARRY OUT THIS PROJECT WAS to act for reducing the increasing gap between privileged and non-privileged members of society - by reaching out to communities of disadvantaged young people through the youth experts working with communities in NGO's. Of course, society is always diverse and it can be an enriching and empowering resource as well, but also a source of destructive conflicts. In Europe,with our social structures, political and economic system, some people have more privilege, power and resources of influence than others. It is enough to mention the widening health and wealth issues gap between East and West, the gender pay gap, the unbalanced availability of resources like education of young people living in a disadvantaged family and environment. There are people who are not (so) visible, who are oppressed, discriminated. This “minority status” can come from different sources, like age, gender, ethnicity, class, ability, religion, sexual orientation, national origin or physical appearance. Often these people are in social ISOLATION which makes them more vulnerable from economic and social points of view. When there are discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice of the “majority” against them, they have fewer opportunities to take part in social life and to express their opinion. OUR MAIN OBJECTIVE WITH “DIVERSITY AND EMPOWERMENT” PROJECT WAS TO reach out to several hundreds of young people living in 11 countries, by gathering 36 youth workers to a training, where they can learn, share and create together. We want to reach out and generate a social impact in this world of diversity - SHARING with community leaders and experts working with young people highly effective EMPOWERING methods (mindsets and tool sets) that help reducing isolation caused by different types of discrimination and that can RECONNECT isolated people and groups by the force of ART and COMMUNITY. One of these methods we have experience in, is an improvisation-based community theater, called PLAYBACK THEATER - it is a world-wide known, progressive contemporary approach of self-expression and community building, reducing alienation and celebrating diversity through personal stories told and enacted in the community. PLAYBACK THEATER (PT) is a widely used form of applied theater that provides individuals and communities a method of telling and listening to stories of human experience. PT was founded in 1975 in New York by Jonathan Fox, Jo Salas and the members of the original company and now it is practiced in over 65 countries. Playback Theater is an interactive theater approach used in educational, therapeutic, social change, and arts settings, for community building, conflict resolution, anti-bullying, working with collective trauma and for developing cultural activism. In a Playback event audience members share true personal stories and watch as a team of actors and musicians transform these stories into improvised enactments. Playback Theater is based on respecting each person and their stories, humanizes communication with each other, builds connections between people and bridges between a person and the society. OUR PROJECT LINKED TO THE GENERAL OBJECTIVE OF THE ERASMUS+ PROGRAMME because we aim at promoting equity and inclusion by facilitating the access to participants with disadvantaged backgrounds, especially social obstacles (people facing discrimination because of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, etc.; people with limited social skills or anti-social or risky behaviors; people in a precarious situation; (ex-)offenders, (ex-)drug or alcohol users; young and/or single parents; orphans). THE KEY ACTION 1 is supporting youth workers and young people to undertake a learning and/or professional experience in another country - which is the main purpose of our project. THE MAIN ISSUES AND NEEDS WE WERE SEEKING TO ADDRESS WERE based on the participants’ and their communities need - giving a proactive, empowering mindset and tool set to the youth workers’ and leaders working with disadvantaged young people what they can use once returned after the 10 Days training in their communities. Additionally, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic situation the ways of segregation and exclusion were amplified as we seen. Different ideologies of the correct health plan, the acceptance or deny of the vaccines, and opinions about the best solution for handling the pandemic, created new walls between communities. We added the topic of pandemic as a current and relevant example how to work with difficult topics and exclusion in smaller and wider communities.