When I was a national expert and the desk officer for SALTO at DG Education and Culture between 2005-2008, the youth work field in Europe was very diverse (and well… still is). Generally there was a very strong public youth work sector in parts of Europe, where the municipalities / local authorities would run youth work directly, with paid youth workers who were trained professionals. In some of these countries financial support to voluntary youth work and youth organisations were relatively generous. In other countries, public youth work was almost non-existent, the youth field consisted of voluntary youth organisations, and the public financial support was very low, if at all. 

There was also different opinions on how to define the age of youth: in some countries the classic definition would be teenagers: 13-19 years. In other countries it would be more like 15-30 years. This reflected also the reality of how long young people tended to live with their parents: if they generally moved from home after high-school at the age of 19 like in Scandinavia, or if they tended to stay at home until 30 years. And then there where the challenge with language: 25 years ago the level of English language was much lower than today throughout Europe. 

This gave the following challenges for a possible youth exchange partnership:

• How to find a partner?
• Who does the same things that we do?
• With the same age group?
• How could we communicate verbally when we meet?

25 years ago, the internet was not very developed. Partner-finding was thus a big challenge. Seminars, trainings, study visits therefore had at least three components: 

• Getting to know the Europen youth programme and how to apply for funding;
• Getting to know youth workers from other countries who could be potential partners;
• Learning how to organise a good youth exchange = intercultural learning.

I still think that in general the age division in a single youth exchange should not be too big. But for many of the other questions, diversity turns out to be the spice of life: working with organisations that operate very differently from what your own organisation does, turned out to be very interesting and fun – for the young people and for the youth workers so much to learn. And what was extremely interesting to experience: verbal communication could be just a tiny piece of communication. Interaction is the main element in intercultural exchange – doing activities together.

The establishment of the SALTOs and their portfolio of different offers and activities very successfully met the interests and demands. As SALTOs were quite newly established, so it was important for them to find their place, make relevant offers, and thus achieve recognition – both from the National Agencies as well as from the European Commission. Simultaneously the SALTOs as a network had to be strengthened, and find their way to cooperate, complement and support each other.