The SoundSteps project emerged from the perception of an increasingly complex world which is becoming more global and connected in terms of technology and economic trade on one side, while at the same time facing multiple interrelating challenges presented by multi-facetted issues such as climate change, the resurgence of populist movements, widening wealth gaps and many armed conflicts forcing people to leave their home country and seek refuge elsewhere. Especially to young generations, these challenges often appear overwhelming, quickly leading to resignation and a loss of faith in meaningful participation and recognizing your potential for change beyond your own horizon. As a core problem, we saw the circumstance that this complexity often makes it hard to locate one’s own responsibility in a world that even though highly digitalized makes it all too easy to stay in one’s comfort zone. Yet, what does locating one's own responsibility mean in practice and how can it be expressed? Starting from this question, SoundSteps was inspired by three simple but powerful ideas: 1) As its first objective, SoundSteps aimed at providing a safe space in which responsibility can be reflected upon. In this respect, the intercultural and inclusive outlook of the project allowed thinking about collective responsibility in a global context. The range of different perspectives, stories, and historical backgrounds that the participants from more than six nationalities and differently privileged positions bring along, enriched discussions and opened the door for reflections on responsibility that reached beyond personal, regional and cultural differences. 2) SoundSteps was built on the principle that community is stronger than isolation and separation. Global challenges require a global answer. Responsibility must be fairly distributed, shared and taken on collectively. While differences are often being exploited to fuel resentment, discrimination and hatred, SoundSteps was driven by the conviction that we should learn from one another and cherish diversity, rather than letting others use it to divide us, and that an open and public discourse, mutual respect, collaboration and solidarity will always outrun the seeming short-term advantages of separation and exclusion. 3) The project idea was deeply immersed in the belief that in order to strengthen young people’s sense of collective responsibility and their power to question and change the status quo, it was crucial to actively experience responsibility. Hence, the third objective of SoundSteps was to confront our young participants with the direct experience of taking responsibility within a highly heterogeneous group of individuals. To approach these objectives, we chose to draw on art, music and dance as particularly well-suited media for interpersonal encounters. By building trust and offering an experience of responsibility stimulated and guided by the universal languages of music and dance, SoundSteps provoked active participation, the coordination of individual efforts in spite of cultural, economic or physical differences, and sharpened each individual’s awareness of their responsibility in a complex world. In sum, SoundSteps’ core aim was to motivate young people to reflect on their individual and collective responsibility as well as to provide a space to experience the power of collaboration, diversity and respect by taking part in an intercultural and creative process collectively producing an artistic outcome that reflects the expressions of a dialogue of what responsibility meant to each one of them in practice. SoundSteps, hence, ultimately sought to promote the global efforts for better relations among people and nations, which have spawned peace projects such as the European Union and which we regard as absolutely indispensable, especially in the light of the recent reminders that the privilege of long-lasting piece cannot be taken for granted but is only sustained by daily practices of exchange and creating empathy for each other – by locating our responsibility in a complex world and making it count.