Although we are living in the time of the longest peace in Europe, the conflicts keep appearing, sometimes in the places no one expects them to. Moreover, the “new wars” that are hedged are no longer involving the conventional weapons, but rather are held over the minds of people, mostly affecting young generation. As the youth is becoming more and more vulnerable to the negative impact of the latent violence, the risk to use violence as a way of solving their own conflicts (as the outcome of the lack of skills and understanding) is growing dramatically too. We believed that in order to create peace — not only in the sense of absence of war or social unrest — to live in harmony with others and with ourselves, our young people need to develop certain attitudes such as tolerance, respect for each other, compassion, forgiveness and ability to reconcile. The project “Youth 4 Peace” was specifically developed in response to the current events in Europe and is designed to encourage a dialogue between young activists and create a platform for sharing thoughts, new ideas and concepts for a better shared future. The project was hosted in Cyprus between 16-24/6/2023 with the participation of 42 young people from 6 EU countries. The goal of the project was to allow youngsters from conflict countries to get to know each other, get to know each other’s art and culture, customs, traditions and food, to become friends and hopefully after the exchange to create even more follow up activities that will involve even more young people in peace building and reconciliation rather than in war The youth exchange facilitated meetings of young people from different countries and environments, gave them a unique opportunity to get to know each other, discuss and compare different opinions, built an atmosphere of understanding and respect for other cultures, religions, and national differences, using various non-formal methods of education. The project served as a channel that facilitated the participation of young people in the process of creating a counter violent extremism and no hate speech agenda. This process included, but was not limited to, intercultural dialogues, inputs to reports and publications, distribution of the peace campaign materials, advocate for human rights. The program was initiated in order to find out which topics are actually of concern for young people in Europe, what moves them and what makes them interested in politics or even pushes them to become actively involved. Furthermore, the project’s goal was to bring those young Europeans from different countries together and give them a space to share and discuss these issues as well as their needs, and to be a stepstone on their way to becoming responsible European citizens. The topics which crystallized were the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and the handling of refugees in Europe, next to the financial crisis which many of them were deeply concerned about and becoming aware that they will not be able to live their lives like the generation of their parents. The project ‘Youth 4 Peace’ aimed to equip youth and group leaders with competences to be peace leaders and multipliers of building culture of peace and human rights across Europe by being actively involved in developing their local and international communities based on peace, human rights and inclusion. Objectives of this project were: -to gain better understanding of peace and human rights and its forms and the importance of youth participation and leadership in democratic institutions, -to equip young activists with off-line and on-line tools to strengthen culture of peace and human rights both on a local and European level, -to create a space for young people to practice their leadership skills aiming to promote transcultural societies and speak up for under-represented voices; -to equip young people with skills to be able to engage with policy makers in peace processes and in addressing the human rights and peace violations at the local level; -to create series of audiovisual materials for, with and by young people which would make the voices of young people heard; -to design at least 4 youth-led initiatives by the participants of the project which would aim to create sustainable peace in European societies. The youth exchange aimed at: - equipping youth with skills and knowledge needed for transferring the fundamental values of peace and tolerance in an innovative way, - promoting diversity, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue. - promoting common values of freedom, tolerance and respect of human rights, - social inclusion of marginalized groups, - promoting peace, respect, dialogue and tolerance. The purpose of this exchange was to provide young people a positive social experience associated with tolerance , awakening in them an attitude of tolerance , openness to differences , reducing their stereotypes and fears , racism and xenophobia.