With this International Youth Exchange we create an opportunity for 60 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds from Spain, Slovakia, Portugal, Slovenia, Germany, Hungary and UK* to come into genuine contact with themselves and others, to learn and share in an encouraging and safe environment in Ceuta and Málaga, Spain. The host group ‘Almatahiar’ is a youth initiative composed of diverse young people from two deprived communities in the South of Spain: Los Asperones - "comunidad gitana" (Roma, Calé), at the periphery of Málaga and "El Principe"- a Muslim Community at the border to Morocco, in Ceuta, a city with a long history of multicultural coexistence. They have invited 8 youth groups from other challenged communities in European cities to cross the troubled waters between two continents, share their concerns, encourage each other, co-create new ideas and feel empowered to spread their wings. Many of our young people feel confused and irritated at what politicians are (not) doing, the problems with Covid, the threats to the environment, the lack of significant and sustainable training and employment. Facing the shrinking spaces for civil society actors in disadvantaged communities, where the access to rights and opportunities is often obstructed, this project also aims to encourage and support local and European youth work partners to develop their potential as important stakeholders and multipliers for HR education and the plight for a life in dignity. The programme focuses on needs of young people from politically forgotten and neglected communities, where marginalised groups, minorities like Roma, Calé, Muslim and ‘Mena’, refugee young people live and suffer exclusion. It will draw political attention towards those communities, contributing to young people’s awareness that their role as European active citizens goes beyond the right to vote; that they are not only passive consumers in a democracy. It will give them the possibility to learn more about their universal HR and many reasons to defend them, discover their potential to actively take steps to spread their wings and raise their voices. The Exchange will enhance young people's democratic involvement in their civil societies, create a catalyst for a renewed confidence and hope.