SolaNova is a youth exchange designed to empower young people through storytelling, imagination, and intercultural collaboration. It responds to an urgent need for hopeful narratives, emotional resilience, and creative civic participation in the face of climate anxiety and political apathy. At its core, SolaNova believes that imagining a better future is the first step toward building it, and that young people must be at the centre of that process. Through non-formal education, group-based creativity, and guided workshops, 36 young people from 6 countries will come together in Hildesheim (Germany) to co-create SolaNova: an imagined near-future world grounded in the narrative genres of solarpunk and hopepunk, which offer powerful frameworks for imagining just and sustainable futures. Participants will develop skills in creative writing, culminating in a 'Stories of Hope' anthology of short stories, alongside oratory performance techniques, in preparation for a dissemination event at the PROSANOVA Festival of Young Literature, one of Germany’s most prominent platforms for young writers and experimental literature, where they will share their work. The objectives of the project are as follows: 1. To develop storytelling and creative writing skills in young people as tools for self-expression, emotional resilience, and cultural participation. 2. To provide space and support for young people to address climate anxiety, doomerism and hopelessness through collective imagination and narrative creation. 3. To explore solarpunk and hopepunk as genres capable of generating critical, future-oriented thinking rooted in care, justice, and sustainability. 4. To promote intercultural dialogue and collective authorship, fostering collaboration among young people with diverse backgrounds. 5. To guide participants through the full cycle of literary production: from writing to editing, presentation, crowdfunding, and publishing. 6. To connect youth-created narratives with wider audiences by presenting them at a professional literary festival and through public dissemination efforts. 7. To create an open and safe environment where participants can share and learn from one another. 8. To promote self-awareness, teamwork, cooperation and initiative skills.