The study “Youth Work and the Corona Pandemic in Europe” by RAY (2020) carried out that 70% of responding youth workers experience their youth work majorly affected by the Corona pandemic (Böhler, Karsten & Pitschmann, 2020). Furthermore, 55% of youth leaders saw at least two thirds of their youth work interrupted and only 17% youth workers and youth leaders managed to transfer their whole work to online formats. On top of that, 70% of responding youth workers lost access to more than one third of the young people they are normally working with. Especially young people with fewer opportunities have become much harder to reach, NEETs are highly endangered to fall into this category.

Not only the current COVID-19 pandemic is an international challenge young people in Europe are facing. 44% of the young Europeans consider climate protection as one of the most important problems in the EU (TUI Youth Study 2020). The YES-SI project is directly linked to the three core areas “engage”, “connect” and “empower” of the European Youth Strategy 2019-2027. The YES-SI as well as the European Youth Strategy focus strongly on democratic participation of all young peoples in society and support of their social and civic engagement. YES-SI provides young people and youth workers with methods and tools as well as opportunities for transnational networking. Against this background, the YES-SI project intends to empower young people in Europe to contribute actively and together with other young European as changemakers to innovative solutions for nowadays (inter-)national challenges.