Our project “Happily Ever After… or Else” is an 8-day international youth exchange implemented within the Erasmus+ Youth framework, involving 40 young people aged 13–17 and 8 group leaders from Romania, Hungary, Finland and Spain. The project is grounded in everyday youth work practice and responds directly to the identified needs of young people with limited access to international mobility, intercultural learning and youth participation, particularly those coming from minority, rural, Roma and neurodivergent backgrounds. From a youth work perspective, the project aims to create a safe, inclusive and creative non-formal learning environment where young people can actively explore European values through experiential learning. The project uses European fairytales as a common cultural language, combined with theatre-based methods and digital storytelling, enabling participants to reflect on identity, diversity, equality, cooperation and belonging in an age-appropriate and emotionally accessible way. A core objective of the project is to strengthen young people’s understanding of European values such as diversity, inclusion, solidarity and equality by transforming them from abstract concepts into lived experiences. Through discovering national fairytales, identifying shared motifs and values, and jointly creating a new European fairytale, participants experience “unity in diversity” in practice. This process directly supports the development of European awareness and a sense of belonging to a wider European community. Our project places strong emphasis on youth participation and empowerment. Young people are active co-creators throughout all phases of the exchange. They contribute to shaping creative content, take part in daily responsibilities, make decisions within mixed international groups, and jointly develop the final theatre performance and digital outputs. Another central objective is to develop intercultural competence and communication skills. By working in mixed international teams, using English as a working language and engaging in theatre and storytelling activities, participants gradually overcome language barriers, build confidence in expressing themselves and learn to cooperate across cultural differences. Theatre provides a protected space where young people can express ideas symbolically, while digital storytelling allows them to translate creativity into tangible outputs using accessible digital tools. Our project also aims to empower young people through creative self-expression. Storytelling and theatre support emotional intelligence, imagination and self-confidence, particularly for participants who may struggle with traditional verbal or academic forms of expression. Digital storytelling complements this by developing basic digital competences and responsible media use, aligned with Erasmus+ priorities on digital transformation. Introducing Erasmus+ and Youthpass as learning tools is another explicit objective. Many participants are first-time participants in international projects. Through dedicated sessions and continuous reflection, young people learn about Erasmus+ as a space for learning, participation and inclusion, and become aware of their own learning outcomes using Youthpass-related reflection methods. From an organisational youth work perspective, our project aims to improve the quality of youth work practice within the partner organisations by testing and documenting theatre-based and storytelling methods adapted to younger age groups. The jointly developed guidelines on storytelling as a non-formal learning method will support future youth work activities and increase the partners’ capacity to design inclusive and participatory youth exchanges.