In December 2012 a group of EDIW Youth carried out an analysis of social needs in Oviedo, Spain. Four were selected as top priorities: youth unemployment came top in their analysis. The second was high rates of school dropout felt as a decisive point for the future. They also identified lack of social commitment of youth and decided to act upon it, starting a project. Finally, they considered a critical moment for Europe and focalised the need of integration of migrants. In over two years, several steps were taken by the group. This project: “Roots and Wings” (R&W) addresses these four needs in a small, concrete and pilot form. The social commitment of youth is the articulating backbone. It is from this perspective that they look at the other three and search for answers.This attempt is backed by 2 Universities, one Intergovernmental Southeast Asian Centre, a Foundation, a European Association and an NGO incorporating the beginning of a SME. The countries involved are Belgium, Italy and Spain where the three social challenges are strongly felt: The three with high numbers of migrants, particularly in recent years, with very high percentages of school dropouts and of unemployment, particularly in the southern countries.The social commitment of the youth has begun with their group analysis of the situation and is followed by three lines of engagement. Besides analyzing unemployment and trying to develop the most required competences most of them were involved the integration of migrant families and youth or in the reinforcement of school children. A group of the latter, were involved in a youth workers mobility for two months in the Philippines, where they had the chance to experience a school for two hundred street children- a consolidated project, an emerging project to avoid dropouts from public schools in three run - down areas of Manila. This action had a very strong impact on the people on mobility and everyone around.This project works through circles: the 6 people who took part in the mobility were part of a group of youth workers trained in a number of competences through two intensive experiential training sessions to help in their social commitment and in their employability. This group was made of 32 youth workers two per each of the 16 groups in Europe and 2 in The Philippines, who followed the course, around 160 young people.They used a system of three steps: analysis of the problems, followed by project development and ending in political dialogue.They were encouraged by new methodologies developing and showing a significant level of success in the integration back in the class of children with difficulty. This was particularly evident with the maths one of the highest causes for failure and consequently of dropout.The project intended to improve the competences of the youth workers in intercultural communication and cultural understanding and in collaborative leadership as well as enhancing the lines of work they had selected.The project was a big success, the sessions were vibrant and full of participation and learning. They often conducted the collective workshops and worked in groups with a high level of participation and sharing. There were a large number of visits to Embassies, NGOs, IGOs and public bodies in their group research and debate.The use of the non-formal learning was a high novelty which was very welcomed in deed by them. It liked well with the experiential nature of the methodology used. At the end of each of the experiences (also in the country experiences carried out by the youth leaders), a certificate and a Youthpass were given as a documentation of the competences acquired. On the second Seminar, there was an intense session of the topic and a serious reflection on learning ending with the Youthpass.