European society is increasingly aware of the importance of today's young people in building tomorrow's European Union. As such, numerous strategies are emerging to encourage the active participation and involvement of this group in society and in topics and decisions that affect their current and future lives. However, analysing the ESNsurvey 2019, it is clear that, for many young people, terms and concepts such as civic participation and democratic participation are difficult to understand. According to this source, ‘Every four in ten respondents do not know what civil participation is’. This low level of knowledge and information translates into low levels of community involvement and civic and democratic participation on the part of young people (an identified social problem). Looking at the European Commission's Flash Eurobarometer 502 (2022), 39% of young Europeans and 36% of young Portuguese said that in the last 12 months they had not taken part in any kind of organisation's activities. This lack of participation is due to reasons such as: ‘I don't understand the issues enough’ - 27%; ‘I have not yet thought about it’ - 24%; ‘Nobody has ever asked or invited me to take part’ - 21%; ‘I'm not interested’ - 19%. When asked ‘What do young people think are the most effective actions for making young people's voice heard by decision-makers?’, 39% of young people believe that voting in local, national and European elections is the most effective way for decision-makers to hear their voice. Only a small number of young people believe that taking part in ‘student or youth organisations’ (25%), ‘Volunteering for a charity/campaign organisation’ (19%) and ‘Taking part in the EU Youth dialogue’ (15%) are effective ways for them to be heard. We therefore realise that young people are not yet actively involved in the alternative dynamics available to them and that society itself limits their opportunities to express themselves effectively, to make themselves heard and to carry out their own actions/projects/movements, leaving them short of the opportunities they could access and with which they could develop new skills, experiences and discoveries and become actively involved in fighting for the needs, challenges and ambitions of young people. Faced with this reality, we have identified the following needs: -To enlighten young people about their role in society; -Educate young people about the different forms of participation; -To encourage the involvement, connection and empowerment of young people in the social, civic and democratic sphere; Promote equal opportunities for democratic and social participation, dialogue and decision-making; Raising awareness and disseminating the European strategies, priorities and opportunities available in the youth field, making everyone co-responsible for consolidating a strengthened European community. Given these needs, we recognised the urgency of encouraging ‘how young people can - actively and effectively - shape their own destiny in building a community (local, national and global) where they want to fulfil their potential and guarantee the rights inherent in it’ (Centro de Juventude de Lisboa, 2017, report ‘Youth and Citizenship Education and Participation’). Thus, the objectives of this project were: (a) General: to encourage community involvement and civic and democratic participation among young people. b) Specific: -To develop skills in young people so that they can be active in the decision-making process and participate actively in society; -Raising young people's awareness of the opportunities that exist in society, particularly those that encourage their empowerment and participation; -To sensitise young people to the importance of having an active role and voice in society; -Promoting young people's action and voice in the construction of Europe, as active agents of positive change and solidarity (which includes the creation of their own projects and ideas in the social, community and democratic spheres). To meet the needs and fulfil the proposed objectives, we promoted capacity-building opportunities aimed at young people, which would focus on discovering and exploiting their value, talent, expectations and ambitions, leading them to adopt a participatory attitude in society. To this end, we explored the Youth Participation Toolkit with young people, letting them know more about the European project, what their role in society could be, what opportunities are available and how to exploit them. Through non-formal education, we empower young people to directly activate their participation in society and even to be agents of activation for other young people (for example, through the creation and implementation of youth projects, voluntary actions, awareness-raising actions, campaigns, etc.), impacting their personal and social life and that of the community itself.