The short answer
Find a sending organisation in Serbia that has an open call. Read the infopack. Fill in the form before the deadline. Write a motivation that is about this specific project. Get selected, join the group chat, book your travel, go.
Six steps. Most people fail at step two.
Step 1: Find the calls
There is no single official database where every project is listed. What exists instead is a scattered network of organisations posting on their own channels.
Where to actually look:
- Instagram accounts of sending organisations in Serbia. This is where most calls land first. Ours is @oev.ngo.
- Facebook groups for Erasmus+ opportunities in the Balkans. Noisy, but active.
- Organisation websites and mailing lists. Slower, more reliable, less competition.
One rule: apply through an organisation from your own country. A Portuguese hosting organisation is not going to take an individual from Serbia who found their post directly. Every national group is recruited by a sending organisation in that country. That is how the funding is structured.
Step 2: Read the infopack properly
An infopack is the PDF attached to the call. It is usually between four and fifteen pages, and roughly nobody reads it before applying.
Check these six things before you write a single word:
- Dates, including travel days. Some calls list activity days only and expect you to arrive the evening before.
- Age range. Not negotiable. Hard filter.
- Venue. Not the country — the actual town, and how far it is from the nearest airport or bus station.
- What the fee covers, and the exact amount.
- Travel ceiling in euro, for your distance band.
- The theme, and what participants are expected to prepare in advance.
If any of those six are missing from the infopack, ask before applying. If the answer is vague, that is information too.
Step 3: Fill in the form
Almost always a Google Form. Almost always longer than you expect. Set aside twenty minutes and do it in one sitting — half-finished forms have a way of never being finished.
Standard fields: name, date of birth, contact details, dietary needs, previous experience, motivation, sometimes a question about what you would contribute to the intercultural evening.
Answer the dietary question honestly. Hosting organisations plan meals around it weeks in advance, and “I’ll manage” on the form turns into a problem on day two.
Step 4: Write a motivation that is not the same as everyone else’s
Here is what we read, over and over: “I want to meet new people from different cultures, improve my English, and gain new experiences.”
That is not a bad sentence. It is just the same sentence as forty other people’s, which means it carries no information. We cannot select on it.
What works instead:
- Name the theme and say something about it. If the project is on waste and circular economy, say what you have noticed about waste in your own town. Two sentences is enough.
- Say what happens after. You do not need a grand plan. “I volunteer at a student organisation and I want to run a workshop on this in autumn” is plenty.
- Include one real detail about yourself. You cook, you skate, you are the only person in your faculty who likes statistics. It makes you a person in a stack of forms.
- Be honest about your English. Nobody is looking for perfect. Saying “I understand well but I get nervous speaking” is completely fine and often gets you selected over someone who claims C2 and cannot hold a sentence.
Length: shorter than you think. Six to ten sentences that say something specific beat two paragraphs that say nothing.
Step 5: Apply early
Selection is frequently rolling. Organisations start reading as forms come in, and by the time the stated deadline arrives, three of the five places may already be informally taken.
Applying eight days before the deadline instead of on the last night is, in our experience, one of the highest-return things a first-time applicant can do. It costs nothing.
Also: apply to more than one call. Rejection here is rarely about you — group balance, gender balance, age spread and how many places each country got all matter, and none of them are within your control.
Step 6: After you are selected
Things move fast now.
The group chat. Usually WhatsApp, created within a day of selection. Join it. Answer in it.
Travel booking. Do not book anything until the organiser confirms your ceiling and your route in writing. Then book immediately — prices only go one direction. If you are travelling by bus or train, say so, because green travel pays more and may give you extra covered days.
Documents. Valid ID or passport, European Health Insurance or equivalent, whatever the organiser asks for. Check your passport expiry now, not in three weeks.
Preparation task. Most projects assign one — a short presentation about your country, something for the intercultural evening, a small piece of research on the theme. Do it. The people who skip it are visible on day one.
Pre-departure meeting. If your sending organisation runs one, go. It is where you meet the other four people you will be travelling with, and it is much better to have met them before a 14-hour bus ride.
If you get rejected
Write back and ask whether you can be kept on the list for the next one. Half the time the answer is yes, and the second application is easier because they now recognise your name.
We keep a list. Most organisations do.
Read next
- What Is a Youth Exchange and What Actually Happens There
- Is Erasmus+ Free? What’s Covered and What You Pay Yourself
- Do You Need Perfect English to Join a Youth Exchange?
Open Educational Vibes selects and sends participants from Serbia to Erasmus+ projects across Europe. Calls go out on @oev.ngo. Questions: office@oev.rs.
Sources: Erasmus+ Programme Guide — Youth Exchanges · European Youth Portal
