From 7 to 15 June 2026, a Youth+ team travelled to Osijek, Croatia to take part in "Critical Connection: Youth Against Bullying and Misinformation," an Erasmus+ youth exchange (Key Action 152) hosted by NGO Uroboros. For nine days, our participants joined 36 young people from Croatia, Germany, Portugal, Serbia and Türkiye to dig into three challenges that shape daily life online and offline: misinformation, cyberbullying and cultural bullying.

The programme ran entirely on non-formal education. Instead of lectures, the days were built around forum theatre, role-plays, debates, case studies and intercultural storytelling. Our team did not just attend sessions, they led them. In line with the project design, every participant co-facilitated at least one activity, which pushed our young people to step up as facilitators and not only as learners.

A lot of the work fed directly into the project's shared outputs. Participants contributed to the #ThinkTwiceActWise campaign, producing videos, infographics and social content on responsible online behaviour, and helped build the Critical Connection digital toolkit, a collection of tested methods for media literacy and bullying prevention that schools and youth organisations across Europe can reuse.

Between the workshops, the exchange was also about people. Cultural evenings turned into a tour across five countries in a single room, from shared food to traditions like the Turkish delegation's carnation and henna celebration. One evening took the whole group into Osijek's historic Tvrđa quarter, where the baroque squares made for the kind of slow, easy conversations where real friendships start.

Our participants came home with sharper critical thinking, more confidence in front of a group, and a network of peers across the continent. More importantly, they came back as multipliers, ready to carry what they learned into their own communities through concrete local follow-up actions.

Thank you to NGO Uroboros and all partner organisations for the work, and to everyone who made these nine days count.

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Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Croatian National Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.