This generation of young people is living in unparalleled times, with the influence of social media creating an image of an unreachable ‘perfect life’, together with a set of obsolete educational tools in traditional schools which end up lacking in providing soft skills, real life experience and confidence in their abilities. Many youngsters have lost their enthusiasm and proactiveness in being agents of change in their life and environment. And they also need to prepare themselves for a future in which previous references related to work, personal relationships, security and identity are no longer valid, as unexpected obstacles never seen before, such as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, present complex challenges for the entire world. Next Step! has been a project focused on exploring and expanding possibilities of future paths for these youngsters, by improving self-confidence, social skills and creativity of young people, through various outdoor and embodied activities. When it comes to being outside, learning becomes far more easy than in a formal setting. The project aimed to create an environment supporting and fostering youngsters’ self development and expression of their creativity and enthusiasm, with focus on body awareness and vitality. We wanted to give tools for self education and growth to young people who would otherwise have limited access to opportunities in an international environment, so they could also share these tools with their local communities. Furthermore, we experienced that for our target group, simple activities of shared responsibility bring the most results. Thus we included practical elements in the program such as preparing breakfast and lunch in smaller groups, and organising/cleaning the spaces in order to discover simple ways to cooperate with each other towards a common goal. The project aimed to create an environment that supports and fosters their self development and expression of their creativity and enthusiasm. One of the objectives of this project was to make it happen as planned in summer 2021, even during the uncertainty of the pandemic. The target group we intend to focus on is fewer opportunity youngsters between the age of 16-22 years. At this age, identity-forming is one of the most important topics, therefore being in a group does not only bring fun or challenges, it is also a great opportunity to grow through the interactions with the other participants. Working with the target group, together with our partners we noticed that those youngsters who do not feel part of a community at this stage, have more difficulties later on integrating and contributing in various social settings, such as university, workplace, any sort of group setups. All this leads to further exclusion and borderline behavior (alcohol/drug abuse, early school/university leave, long- term unemployment, etc.). We formed partnerships with organisations active in the youth field and agreed to create a project to give a chance to youngsters to develop their soft skills, to take initiative and responsibility in their everyday lives and support them in their personal and professional development. Through research among our youth groups and discussion with our partners, we defined the issues and needs of young people as following: - Lack of enthusiasm and interaction/cooperation in the community; - Disconnection between body and mind, with declining vitality, related to evermore present technologies and comforts; - Limited contexts for cultivating, expressing and exploring their passions; - Lacking interpersonal skills, confidence and struggle to fit in. Together with partner organisations we decided to address these issues and needs through the creation of this project, setting as our goal to foster inspiration for self-expression, creativity and vitality. We agreed upon several objectives to reach the goal of this project: - To bring 25 participants from 5 countries (from which at least 30% of them will be with fewer opportunities) to main activity; - To organise Advance Planning Visit to come up with ideas and create a framework for main activity that supports youngsters development the most; - To create environment and space where participants are eager to explore their capabilities, acquire new skills and share best practices among each other; - To enhance skills and competencies useful in personal and professional life, mainly: entrepreneurial skills like planning and organising, goal setting, problem solving, creativity, teamwork, leadership, body awareness; - To strengthen the international community of proactive youth and the collaboration between partner organisations; - To ensure that the dissemination, follow up activities and evaluation of the project would happen.