In our current times, in which right wing populist structures are on the rise, with “alt right” groups and anti-feminist movements taking more and more space and having brought up violent individuals, with environmental catastrophes and impending climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic fueling both conspiracy theorists and income gaps, an overall structure of global adversity is sensed by many. The exorbitant need for opposition and activism – against racism, misogyny, anti-queer hostility and environmental destruction – has led to structures of exhaustion and fatigue among groups and individuals who are facing themselves with these issues. Activist groups in the 20th century have been declaring self-care and community care as essential parts of their political work – Audre Lorde has proclaimed that “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation”. As such, self-care was a form of working on and evolving one’s empathy and community care required us to take responsibility of each other by reflecting on one’s own privileges and to help empower others by enabling their self-realization. Thus, fostering self-care and community care were integral elements in the community structures in which we were active against injustice, violence, and environmental decay. With the project “We’re All Part Of The CAKE – Care, Activism, Knowledge & Empowerment” (#CAKE22), ROOTS & ROUTES Cologne e. V. and our partners in the international ROOTS & ROUTES network and beyond wanted to create an international artistic laboratory space for young people, in which they can empower each other, reflect on their own position within the global structures they lived in and engaged in artistical experimentation: 36 young people from 6 countries got together on a remote North-sea island with no car traffic in a self-contained house at the edge of a nature reserve. There, they started from their experiences and from discussing today’s crises and challenges, they would deliberate on their own take on self-care and community care. In small internationally mixed creation groups, they created topical short films, live performances, installations, songs, spoken word texts, music videos or other art forms. On the level of participants, #CAKE22 links to the following ERASMUS+ objectives: – increased self-empowerment/self-esteem, improved learning performance: participants would be supported in self/mutual empowerment processes by the project team, consisting of professional artists and non-formal education experts; they gained life skills from living, cooking, eating and working together in transnationally mixed groups, and self-esteem from creating artistic pieces and presenting them to a live audience. – enhanced intercultural awareness: most national groups in this project had a high level of internal diversity. In this project, they connected with others from countries with very different situations; they worked together in small, internationally mixed groups on sensitive topics, carefully guided by the project team – more active participation in society: CAKE provided the participants with room for exchange and reflection on our societies' structures, and with tools to express their analysis, dreams and demands in an appealing way to the public – better awareness of the European project and values: dealing with present and future challenges to European societies helped the participants to develop an own perspective on the European project and values – improved foreign language competences: English was the main working language, supported by non-verbal artistic communication and by additional connecting languages spoken across national groups. In our experience, cooperating towards common goals helped overcoming language barriers and gaining confidence in foreign languages – increased sense of initiative and entrepreneurship: working in small creation groups under professional artistic conditions required (and evoked) lots of initiative and entrepreneurial mindset On organisational level, the project linked to the following ERASMUS+ objectives: – the project has deepen relationships between the project consortium and thus increased capacity to operate at EU/international level; especially for the new partners in this project – increased quality in international projects; and more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment inside the consortium partners: This project was part of the international ROOTS & ROUTES network’s constant pursuit for quality and improvement in our work, building on elements from previous projects like “Future Lab Young Europe" 2019 and 2021 (2018-3-DE04-KA105-017178 & 2019-3-DE04-KA105-018654), but with a different topical scope and set of partners. Also, the project is connected to the Strategic Partnership “OASES for Change – Organising Artistic Self-Empowerment Spaces” (2020-1-DE04-KA227-YOU-020841): We tested and further developed OASES Intellectual Outputs at the CAKE22 project.