Cultural heritage binds Europe together through our common history and values. It also represents the richness and diversity of our cultural traditions. Our shared cultural heritage is to be understood, cherished and celebrated. Yet cultural heritage is not only a legacy from the past. It also helps us forge the way ahead and design our future. The European Year of Cultural Heritage has been celebrated all over Europe and represented an opportunity to bring people together. According to “Innovation in Cultural Heritage” Research, made by the European Commission “Mobile accessibility, virtual reality, and social media hyper connectivity are making heritage more accessible and more easily consumed by the new generations of heritage custodians. Connecting youth from all across Europe and enabling them to easily explore and share their interests, digital content has become an essential asset for bringing heritage closer to the young people because they remain largely anonymous from heritage conservation policy and practice. Therefore, the project “Youth Heritage Story” was designed to answer two main questions: 1. In what ways do young people engage with urban and rural heritage? 2. How can this engagement be used to develop a better understanding of the relationship between young people and historic and cultural places?” To answer these questions, during a youth exchange about volunteering, organised in August 2019, a group of 4 youth leaders Alina Boldisor (PT), Emilia Radu (Romania), Andrei Daicer (Romania), Valentina Hudek (Croatia) came up with the idea of this project during a cultural activity. Returning home, they have sketched a need analysis survey applied to 23 youth organisations from their network to understand the perception of 126 young people surveyed about cultural heritage and historic environment. The conclusions were that: for 60% of them there was no distinction between the intangible and tangible heritage within the minds of young people, 80% consider that historical buildings from urban/ rural areas are not adapted for their learning needs and are not digital friendly; 54% valued the architecture for what it enabled them to do in terms of physically challenging them, stimulating their minds and facilitating social interaction; 44% think that they aren’t consulted when are taken decisions about the cultural spaces by public institutions; 28% knew about the European Year of Cultural Heritage and activities that were organised. The research results helped us to sketch a challenge for young people to engage more, keep alive the cultural heritage and share their know-how. In the end, 6 European Youth organisations created a sharing and reflecting space for 44 youngsters about European cultural heritage and encouraged them to promote it through backpack journalism and digital tools. Journalism is a way of discovering realities and traditions of a country or a community, enabling the dialogue between different generations. The specific objectives of the Youth Heritage Story project were: SO1: In October 2021, 44 young people participated in a 9 days Youth Exchange in Azores to become aware of how local and European cultural heritage looks, sounds, taste like, and discovered the stories worth written, recorded, photographed using backpack journalism. SO2: After the youth exchange, 6 youth groups create each 1 digital map with the “local cultural gems” and organised local #Heritage InstaMeets in their hometowns for 180 young people to promote the local cultural heritage and Erasmus+ Programme with 6 exhibitions. SO3: 6 Youth NGOs and 44 youngsters launched 1 European awareness campaign “#Youth4Heritage” on social media to encourage young people to take action, understand the potential of cultural heritage to promote “hidden, less known or forgotten cultural gems” from all over Europe. The project aligned with the Erasmus+ programme as: - It developed social, civic and intercultural competencies of 44 youngsters (with and without fewer opportunities) from 6 countries, promoted common European values and encouraged the participation of youth with fewer opportunities through backpack journalism. - It supported the inclusion of NEETs, youth from rural areas and from low-income families and newcomers in mobilities to discover other European cultures, to cherish their own cultural heritage, participate in an intercultural dialogue with like-minded youth while developing key-competencies valuable for their further insertion on the labour-market. Moreover, they developed job-related competences (foreign languages, social, civic and cultural competence, digital competences). In this sense, 60% of the group selected was part of these 2 categories (Youth field and national priority).