There is a higher than average concentration of economic, social & environmental problems in distressed urban areas throughout Europe. Residence in such areas often implies a standard of living or a quality of life below that of the majority in a particular society, to the extent that it involves hardship, inadequate access to resources and underprivilege. Young people are particularly affected & must be included in viable solutions to these challenges. However, no programme can be successful without the participation of these young people from the onset in the development, implementation & sustainment of solutions. These city kids need to be empowered & ignited with a desire to learn and develop their own competences & skills as well as those of their peers to become full-fledged bringers of change & growth in their urban communities. Thus, when a group of active young people approached our partner organisations with the idea to hold this project within the scopes of Erasmus+, the partners did not hesitate. The idea & planning of this project was developed by the young people in the course of discussions during the Big City Youth project about how to foster innovative thinking & entrepreneurial mindsets of youth living in distressed urban areas. During discussions held between the young people & the partners that work in the field of social inclusion & employability of young people coming from distressed urban areas, the project initiators defined the goal and objectives of this project. The goal of this project was to equip the youth from distressed urban areas with an increased level of key competences & skills through volunteering in order to improve their employability, enhance their feelings of social inclusion, build a sense of belonging to their communities & increase their ability to work towards an effective solution in addressing the problems that affect them. Most people recognise the acquisition & development of soft skills as important for progressing in life & work. Those of us who work with disadvantaged young people living in distressed urban areas recognise that these skills are often under-developed with them. Our project piloted non formal education approaches that raise awareness of what soft skills are, helped our young people to assess themselves, & identify where & how they could actively seek to improve these skills within the context of their learning programmes, workplaces & daily lives. By doing so, all partners involved wanted to make an impact on young people's life chances & employability. With thorough consideration of the Covid-19 pandemic, the partners took the required steps, with the participants’ safety staying the priority. The locally-based phases were carried out online, whereas the mobility activities were implemented with all applicable precautions taken into consideration. The project objectives were to: - Support volunteerism as a way to acquire new skills - Promote volunteering as a starting point for employability - Increase cross-sectorial cooperation & enhanced communication between the voluntary sector and the labour market - Create the possibility for young people to become visible members of the community as well as active & informed citizens - Promote non-formal education & validation of such experience - Encourage innovation in problem solving - Empower young people to recognise that each & any one of them can be agents of change - Encourage acquisition of life-long skills Through the combined interaction of the participating partners & participants, we managed to increase the capacity of young people living in distressed urban areas to contribute to the well-being of both their community & their lives. Through the activities & exchange of ideas, use of a variety of techniques to improve innovative thinking processes, the partners inspired the participants to think innovatively about the challenges related to their surroundings. Innovative thinking opened up new opportunities, gave way to an array of creative solutions & helped to rethink the existing obstacles that hinder the achievement of the desired outcomes. Innovative voluntary actions gave those coming from distressed urban areas the knowledge, skills & understanding how to play an effective role in the society, help to create & implement new ideas and increase their employability skills. Creative thinking enabled the young people understand how to overcome the fears & discouragement often experienced if facing a challenge, whatever the obstacles: educational, labour or social. The idea can be further developed after the project & serve as an inspiration for developing follow-up projects by the participants who will establish new contacts. Furthermore, the participants were introduced to new methods & tools for generating ideas & developing strategies for successful project implementation targeting distressed urban areas & became familiarised with the basic tools in project management.