The YUM project (1/5/2015 - 31/8/2017) is a mutual joining of individual forces & yearlong experiences between EMJ, EJE & BMA to offer the largest international available opportunity for cooperation & debate (platform) for young artists in the cultural & creative sector (CCS). Young artists originating from the 8 candidate EU countries Iceland, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, the FYR Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo will be given the opportunity to engage, work and learn from a cultural network of with > 5000 artists & profs from 25 countries. The project’s aim of evoking through music the highest EU cultural interest to artists & profs and creating a long lasting cultural bond, is based on an intern. prof. contribution & belief in the ever increasing “united through diversity” effect.All partners are experienced in organizing cultural actions but have rarely welcomed artists from these 8 candidate countries. Now all are giving the chance to meet with colleagues & profs from all over EU via specific activities, accessible for all artists, to the benefit of levering their professional artistic experience and potential.At 6 festivals (2 in BE, 1 in HU & 3 in SK), explicit project events & grand theatre cultural exchange workshops, presenting the candidate countries’ music & dance & guided by these countries’ prof. artists, will be organized. Evaluation concerts & individual coaching meetings to have these musical performances evaluated & discussed will also be foreseen.Prof. adjudicators from these countries are invited as well & are offered, together with the young artists, an opportunity to professionalize their career, to contact a large number of EU federations & organizations active in the field of perform. arts & to learn to know the diversity of the CCS through the hundreds of pieces of music & dance performances presented. These artists not only bring along a new audience but also strengthen the social inclusion of all EU citizens.