The Greek philosopher Aristotle once said that the essence of life is ‘to serve others and do good’. Volunteering is important because it offers essential help to worthwhile causes, people in need, and the wider community. In fact, the benefits of volunteering are vast for the volunteer, not just for other individuals, the community or organisations receiving their assistance. Serving and helping each other and different communities benefits ourselves, too. Volunteering is beneficial to the volunteer for a lot of reasons, including stress reduction, combating depression and providing a sense of purpose. Also, doing good for others and the community helps to create a natural sense of accomplishment. Given that, it helps address a social problem that is meaningful to you and in turn helps to build a sense of purpose, which boosts your own happiness. And working as a volunteer can give you a sense of pride and identity, helping to increase your self-confidence by taking you out of your comfort zone and everyday life. Besides that, if you’re feeling lonely, isolated, or simply want to widen your social circle, volunteering is an important and often fun way to meet new people. Actually, one of the best ways to make new friends and strengthen existing relationships is to commit to a shared activity together through volunteering. Even more, if you’re shy or fearful of new experiences, cultures and travel, volunteering could be an insightful way to help you build self-confidence in this area, too. Also, volunteering is an important and interesting way to meet people who you might not normally connect with, such as people from different ethnicity, age or social groups. Thus, it connects you to people who have common interests and passions and who could become your friends. Furthermore, in an increasingly competitive job market, volunteering experience can be incredibly useful. It shows potential employers that you can take initiative and that you’re willing to give your own time to improve the world for the others. Also, volunteering is an important and fun way to try out different career options, especially if you’re not quite sure of where you want to go next. However, with most of us leading super busy lives, the idea of volunteering, or giving our time and energy to a cause without any financial reward, may seem a difficult task. That is because in this fast moving world it’s challenging to fit anything else into our already jam-packed schedules. Volunteering is important for many reasons, thus with the Youth exchange ‘Volunteer! You are never too young to change the world!’, we wanted to show youngsters the tremendous positive impact volunteering can have on people’s personal and professional development, as well as for other people in need, and the society at large. Given that, our mission was to inspire young people across Europe to engage in voluntary initiatives and to give their time to issues or organisations they feel are important or have a special connection to. In that sense, this project was directed towards exploring different voluntary opportunities, with special focus on European Solidarity Corps (ESC), as ‘the new European Union initiative which creates opportunities for young people to volunteer or work in projects in their own country or abroad that benefit communities and people around Europe’. In that sense, the project explored the different activity types offered as part of ESC, such as volunteering activities, traineeships, jobs and solidarity projects. Besides that, we were seeking to show young people that no matter of their age or life story, volunteering can be an important technique to help give their life new meaning and direction. Therefore, the project’s objectives were set as following: • to motivate youngsters to involve in voluntary actions in their countries and abroad; • to allow exchange of voluntary experiences between young people from different countries around Europe; • to raise awareness about the social value of volunteering and active citizenship; • to empower youth to find a cause they are passionate about and to promote active youth involvement; • to encourage youngsters to practice various important skills, as communication, teamwork, problem solving, planning, organisation, etc. through volunteering; • to promote the Erasmus+ Programme, the European Solidarity Corps, as well as non-formal education; • to strengthen respect for cultural diversity.