We wanted to carry out the project “Voicing Soul in Nature, Art, and Song” because the mankind is facing numerous crises that needed action. There are 3 layers of the great crises that exist and are happening in the world simultaneously. We are facing the global climate crises, that is affecting humans, fauna and flora of earth and threatening the future of the planet; We are facing the humanitarian crises related to social injustice, immigration, refugees, exclusion, racism, economic disparity and varieties of bigotry etc. And we are facing existential crises (especially among youth) - the loss of meaning and purpose in life, the so-called ‘youth disconnection’ due to the loss of genuine models. The issues: Many challenges of the youth in contemporary society is happening because youth has become increasingly isolated and disconnected from one another. The latest EU Youth Report has shown that the division between youth groups is growing: not all young people have similar access to the same opportunities, and those who were disadvantaged tended to face even more obstacles. Social and professional marginalization resulting from the economic crisis and its impact on the labor market is a real threat for young Europeans, as the gap between those with more and those with fewer opportunities had widened. The emerging issues most frequently reported in the EU Youth Strategy were social exclusion and unemployment. Eurostat data had shown that in 2020, the rate of young people aged 15-29 years at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU was 25.4%, or 18.1 million young people. In 2021, there had been 71.0 million people aged 15-29 in the EU, of whom 5.0 million were unemployed, leading to an EU unemployment ratio of 7.1%. We started to see the results of this educational debacle in the number of young people who were college-educated yet could not find a job. The issue was and still is that young people are not learning to be thinkers. Instead, they are learning to be memorizers, which is pointless in the new Information Age in which we exist. This brings us to exclusion and disconnection, which, furthermore, could lead to radicalization and even violent extremism. The EU Youth Strategy and the Council of Europe recognise the importance of working towards more cohesiveness through education, youth action, and youth mobility in order to grow more open and inclusive communities. It has the potential to equip young people with the necessary competencies and values based on human rights, contribute to positive social connections, make youth resilient against extremist ideologies, and ensure their personal well-being. With these issues in mind, we recognized the need for role models who are content, finding their way through life with creative approaches, daring to try out different ideas to enhance their lives and the lives of others. Together with our partners, we identified common needs and issues of youth workers that we wanted to address through this project: - Limited skills in creating safe emotional environments for youth; - Reduced knowledge about how to guide youth through the challenges they were facing and towards their authentic selves; - Reduced knowledge about how to advise youth in their career paths in a way that would align with their dreams, wishes, and longings; - Lacking competencies in establishing a profound connection with youth; - Reduced motivation to work on a one-on-one level with youth towards inclusion. We found the opportunity lying in the Erasmus+ funding in order to exchange best practices on one hand and train their staff members on the other hand in an international context. Through the project “Voicing Soul in Nature, Art, and Song,” we aimed to develop the resources and competencies of youth workers while using nature-based methods, methods based in art, embodiment, mentoring, and deep listening in order for them to serve from a place of authenticity and through that create meaningful and purposeful learning environments for supporting youth, especially in rural areas, in their inclusion in personal, social, and professional life, so that they could be part of society while being themselves more fully, feeling more alive, and becoming inspired to be the change-makers in their own lives. The specific objectives of our project were: 1. To increase by 75% the knowledge related to authentic connection and inclusion of young people for 24 youth workers during the project period. 2. To enhance by 75% the skills in guiding and empowering youth through the methods of mentoring, nature-based and art-based learning methods, embodiment, and deep listening methodology on the path of inclusion and social connection for 24 youth workers during the project period. 3. To increase by 75% the motivation of 24 youth workers to work with youth in rural areas. 4. To equip 24 youth workers with at least 30 innovative and quality non-formal education.