Youth exchanges and youth encounters bring young people into contact with other cultures and other realities and provide them with opportunities to discuss specific themes. Young people can thus learn a lot from each other and are able to discover and explore similarities and differences between their cultures. Such an experience can help combat negative prejudices and stereotypes. Moreover, the effect of a youth exchange or a youth encounter on the local population can give rise to more positive awareness of other cultures and have an impact not only on the young people themselves and their associations' activities, but also on the local communities.