Young people in rural areas face a variety of challenges and difficulties that often go unaddressed by local, national, and European authorities. Existing public policies are NOT SUCCESFULL in addressing the needs of rural youth, and the rural youth sector is largely invisible. The lack of dialogue between RURAL young people and the local, national or European authorities results in policies being set without their input. The European Youth Village program seeks to address this by fostering a dialogue between community members and institutional actors, and empowering young people to take an active role in shaping their future. The program is designed to address the specific challenges and needs of rural youth and offers a fresh perspective in the rural youth sector. Most of existing programs for rural youth in Europe are focused on agriculture and start-ups. Moreover, most of the time, decision makers lack an intersection approach on rural youth, and they can’t understand why promoting and supporting the rural youth participation is important. When we built the European Youth Village program our focus was on creating a culture of participation in rural areas, empowering rural youth, and building learning and inclusive opportunities, while promoting an intersection approach in all policies and at all levels. Our goal is to create opportunities for the young people from rural areas in their villages, to promote the development of the rural youth ecosystem by organizing the young people and fostering collaboration between the young people and the decision-makers, while also strengthening the public youth policies at all levels. Therefore, through this project we aimed to: 1. To facilitate the necessary framework for the consolidation of autonomous communities of young people in rural areas, through promoting the European Youth Village program at national level in 7 regional events and 2 national youth meetings and connecting at least 175 young people and representatives of local authorities from rural areas to the program. 2. To stimulate and support the participation of at least 8 initiative groups composed of young people in rural areas from 8 different communities, in the elaboration of an intervention plan that would strategically contribute to solving the problems of young people from their communities, through collaboration and dialogue with local public authorities. 3. To empower 175 young people from rural areas and to equip them with the necessary skills to develop autonomous communities of young people in rural areas and to identify and monitor, from a watchdog position, problems that directly affect them and act, using democratic tools for influencing public decisions. 4. To strategically develop the European Youth Village program by extending its area of action to at least 8 new communes and/or disadvantaged rural areas.