Wild Wisdom – Empowering Youth Workers is a European mobility project that brings together youth workers from six countries for one week of living and learning in nature. Its purpose is simple but urgent: to give youth workers the competences, confidence and inspiration to design youth camps where nature itself becomes the teacher. Across Europe, young people are struggling with new challenges. Climate anxiety and uncertainty about the future weigh heavily on their minds. Hours spent on screens create digital overload and isolation. Many report stress, loneliness and declining mental wellbeing. Youth workers, who accompany these young people in schools, clubs, camps and volunteer groups, see these realities every day. Yet many feel they lack the tools and experience to respond meaningfully. They are motivated and committed, but they need new methods that reconnect young people to themselves, to others and to the natural world. This is where Wild Wisdom comes in. For six full days in September 2025, youth workers from Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Slovenia will live together on an ecofarm in northern Portugal. The venue is not just a background but a central part of the learning process: a one-hectare property planted with citrus trees and vegetable gardens, with tents for sleeping, outdoor showers, a natural spring for drinking water, and meals taken under the trees. The simplicity of the environment is intentional. It invites participants to slow down, adapt, share responsibility, and rediscover the richness of living close to nature. The programme combines experiential activities, practical labs and co-creation. Participants will explore practices such as sit spots (silent reflection in nature), land art with natural materials, storytelling around the fire, and mindful walks. They will engage in labs on facilitation, safety and risk management, and inclusion outdoors, learning how to adapt activities to young people of diverse backgrounds and abilities. A day in the Gerês National Park will allow them to apply safety protocols and group leadership in a wild environment. Later in the week, they will co-design draft models for future youth camps, test them in micro-labs, and harvest lessons for their own organisations. Local actors are deeply involved. Facilitators from neighbouring organisations in the Gerês area, Raiz Nativa and Joyas da Terra, will guide fire circles and reflective walks, share their experience of yoga, permaculture and holistic living. The director of the municipal youth centre Espaço Jovem will join as guest speaker and guide, bridging the project with local youth policy. A community cook will prepare meals with participants’ help, turning food into a moment of cooperation and sustainability. These collaborations root the project in the host community and make the learning authentic. From the perspective of youth work practice, the objectives are clear: Help youth workers grow as facilitators of inclusive and safe outdoor activities. Provide practical tools and inspiration for creating youth camps where nature is the classroom. Build confidence and creativity in working with intercultural groups, including young people with fewer opportunities. Strengthen ecological awareness in youth work, linking everyday practices with the wider goals of sustainability and the European Green Deal. Support personal growth: resilience, empathy, and the ability to step outside one’s comfort zone. The project speaks directly to the aims of Erasmus+ youth worker mobility: improving the quality of youth work, supporting professional and personal development, and creating innovation through shared European experience. By making learning outcomes visible, transferable and applicable in daily practice, the project contributes to the recognition of youth work as a professional field with specific competences, methods and social value. The impact will not end in Portugal. Each participant will act as a multiplier, running follow-up workshops and multiplier events at home, reaching over 120 young people and local stakeholders. A digital toolkit, co-created during the seminar, will collect methods, safety guidelines, reflection tools and camp models, making them available to a wider audience. Results will be disseminated through local events, partner websites, social media, the EuProNet network, and the global ISKCON news platform, ensuring both local grounding and international reach. Looking further ahead, the project will directly inspire new youth camps planned for 2027, where the methods developed will be tested with young participants. The partnership also plans to explore a KA2 small-scale cooperation project to consolidate and expand results. At its heart, Wild Wisdom is both training and lived experience: youth workers learning side by side, supported by the land, the community and each other. What they take home will ripple out to the young people they work with.