“Through the Lens of Reality” project aims to teach participants to question and analyze online information, learn to choose their sources, form fact based opinions and become responsible with the content they share online. With the growing reach and use of technology, online media has become a popular tool to spread information (news, personal opinions, events, pictures, videos etc.). However, this form of media gives way to the possibility of editing and altering messages it sends, misleading or manipulating the audience or presenting erronated information out of ignorance and lack of research. With no immediate censorship, fake news and hate speech can spread rapidly, leading to false assumptions, ignorance, hate or violence. The most susceptible to this type of information are young people, who spend most of their time on their devices (phones, laptops), forming online communities of all types, on all sorts of topics. The vulnerability of youth online is given by a lack of judgement and shallowness in this fast paced environment, where anyone can say anything and people don’t take the time to read and process information accordingly or think critically, acting mostly on emotional impulse, leading to the spread of fake and inappropriate content. This growing concern has come to the attention of members of all participating organisations to the project, who spotted a tendency among young people in their online circles to assert online rumours as facts and easily spread all types of links and online content, without questioning its source, truthfulness or appropriateness. Furthermore, some of them even got to form beliefs and defend these ideas in comment sections, as unquestionable. One such example is biased opinions regarding times or geographical areas they didn’t live in and distorted social, historical or political aspects about them. Another example would be so called facts about certain famous/public people’s lives, quotes or actions. A third example is given by false assumptions in specialized fields they have no knowledge or expertise in, such as posts with erronated information regarding local or international laws, engineering, physics etc. The main objectives of the project are: 1. Empowering participants with a set of skills to analyze and validate the information they receive from third parties or encounter online and form opinions based on critical thinking (consistency of information, evaluate existing evidence, cross-check information, question basic assumptions/ misconceptions, fact checking websites etc.), on the duration of the mobility. (O1) 2. Increasing the skills of the youth participants in expressing themselves in writing and speaking, during the 10 days of the mobility (O2) The project aims to improve the level of key competences and skills of participants, focusing on the 8 key competences of the Erasmus+ Programme, developing their critical thinking skills, capacity to understand and form personal opinions based on facts and logic, improve their language skills in expressing themselves verbally and in writing. The project is designed to increase the sense of responsibility and impulse participants to take action in their communities, by getting involved in local dissemination events in the follow-up phase.Through an intercultural exchange that tackles with European news topics and misconceptions in online media, the project aims to increase intercultural awareness among participants. The experience of this project will serve to enhance cooperation between participating NGOs, who are active in youth work and provide non-formal and informal learning opportunities. They will be able to use the results of the project and disseminate its results to relevant stakeholders in their communities (NGOs, educational institutions and entities who focus their work on youth education, development, social inclusion and integration) who can empower other young people who are less informed about youth opportunities at an EU level (young people from rural areas or small towns, minorities, youth from poor families, orphans). The project will also focus on youth with less access to proper channels of information or media literacy. Participants and organisations taking part in the project will act as influencers to such youth through online and offline channels: social media pages; online communities and pages dedicated to news for youth (teenage magazines, events, highschool groups); local or community based info events. To facilitate the reach of disadvantaged youth, with less access to youth programmes, events, info sessions and other non-formal education opportunities, each organisation will include at least 1 participant facing economical or geographical obstacles in their national team.