The project “Radici e Strade" stems from a long-term process of youth empowerment, active participation, and awareness-raising on rural development, carried out daily at the local level by the Associazione Culturale Giovani Iddocca. Over the years, the association has built around itself a consolidated group of young volunteers at the regional level, aged between 20 and 30, who continuously support its activities. It was precisely these young people – active protagonists of the association’s life and deeply rooted in rural and marginal areas – who wished to carry forward this project. They identified permaculture, environmental sustainability, rural regeneration, and green entrepreneurship as the key areas around which to build a meaningful European experience. Permaculture, in particular, emerged as a transversal lens: not only as an agricultural practice, but as a design philosophy capable of connecting care for the earth, care for people, and the fair sharing of resources – an approach widely recognised as highly coherent with the needs of the territory. This choice was not random. The Sardinian inland areas, like many rural areas across Europe, face complex challenges: depopulation, limited access to the labour market, and low visibility of their natural and cultural resources. The young participants recognised in these elements not only limitations, but also concrete opportunities to imagine alternative development models, rooted in the territory and oriented towards ecological transition. The project therefore took the form of an international youth exchange aimed at providing practical, methodological, and design tools to build a bridge between local realities and the global challenges of sustainability. The objectives defined at the application stage were three, coherent and complementary, and all were fully achieved. The first objective was to raise awareness among young people about environmental and climate challenges, promoting a deeper understanding of the causes and effects of the climate crisis and of the role each individual can play in addressing it. This objective was pursued through activities designed to stimulate critical thinking and systemic awareness: the “Climate Wall” workshop guided participants in the collective construction of a map of interconnections between causes, effects, solutions, and individual actions; “Green or Fake?” strengthened the ability to recognise greenwashing; “Mind the Bias” opened a space for reflection on internalised prejudices and on the link between social justice and environmental justice. The second objective was to reframe rural areas, counteracting the negative stereotype that associates them with a “lack of opportunities” and transforming collective perception towards the idea that in rural areas “everything can be built.” This axis represented the thematic backbone of the entire exchange. The “Rural Postcard” activity invited national groups to reflect on the situation of their own rural areas and to co-create a shared map of the “European rural landscape.” The permaculture workshops – “Permaculture Intro,” “The Sustainability Flower,” and “PermaCanvas” – provided a systemic and regenerative approach to territorial design, showing how permaculture can be applied not only to agriculture but also to the design of social, economic, and community systems. The World Café with local entrepreneurs allowed young participants to meet people who have chosen to build their future in rural areas through regenerative practices, transforming real-life examples into sources of inspiration. The third objective was to encourage sustainable entrepreneurship, inspiring and guiding young people towards the design of green initiatives in rural areas. This objective found its most concrete expression in the “Project Design” sessions, where participants – divided into mixed international groups – developed four sustainable project proposals for rural contexts, integrating permaculture principles, the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda, and a reflection on the competences needed for their implementation. The European frameworks GreenComp, EntreComp, DigComp, and LifeComp were used throughout the process as tools to recognise, name, and guide the development of acquired competences. The proposals were publicly presented to the local community of Laconi during the final event on June 11th, thus closing the circle between learning, design, and concrete action on the territory.