"You must come to China again, you must," says university student Hu Yang to her new friend Hannah Dunham.

"The only fair way to understand a culture is to touch it," says Hu, a student of Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics.

On Jan 11, Hu and Dunham joined more than 200 Chinese and European young people in Brussels at the launch of a special one-year project designed to build better ties for the future.

The EU-China Year of Youth campaign aims to forge trust and understanding between future leaders by physically getting young people together to exchange ideas and discuss issues.

In an effort to raise more awareness among young people about the program the world's top sports stars, including Germany's 2008 Olympic fencing champion Britta Heidemann and basketball star Yao Ming, have joined as ambassadors.

Androulla Vassiliou, the EU commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth and Wang Xiao, president of the All-China Youth Federation, opened the EU-China Year of Youth in Brussels and also signed a joint declaration to establish a policy dialogue in youth affairs.

Another high-profile opening ceremony is scheduled in China next month.

"The year will provide an interactive platform for European and Chinese young people to enhance mutual understanding and friendship through creativity, tolerance and openness," said Wang. "We hope they can open a new page of people-to-people contacts between Europe and China."

Hu's new friendship with Dunham is an example of how the program works.

They met on the bus as they traveled from their hotel to the EU headquarters to attend the launch and made a connection before any speeches were made.

Dunham, a US student earning her master's degree at the University of Vienna, agrees with Hu that face-to-face exchanges have improved her understanding of China.

Dunham has visited China and studied the Chinese language for half a year and says she has a little bit more understanding of China than ordinary Americans and Europeans.

Thanks to her experience, Dunham says she has been able to see beyond the clichs painted by Western media that infer China is "taking our jobs, polluting the world and is scary."

"From my communications with Chinese, I have found more perspectives to look at China, which is so prominent and fast-growing," says Dunham, adding that she felt the urgency to visit China after spending two or three days together with Chinese friends.

Hu says unfortunately, the kind of face-to-face communications with her new friend Dunham is rare but she hopes the program will be a start to something bigger.

The main objectives of the EU-China Youth Year 2011 are to promote intercultural dialogue and strengthen mutual understanding and friendship between European and Chinese youth. It encourages young people to care about and support the development of EU-China relations.

Song Zhe, China's ambassador to the EU, says young people are the key to the future and such a large-scale program will increase mutual understanding and friendship between younger generations.

"The EU and China are now more than just trading partners, but also strategic partners. We should work together for a future of prosperity," says Song.

As well as the EU-China Youth campaign, the EU has also launched a Youth in Action program, which has an annual budget of around 140 million euros and offers funding to young people who want to seek education and volunteer work beyond the EU borders.

Vassiliou boasts that the EU-China Year of Youth will open up new horizons for young people by enabling them to share experiences and learn from each other.

"I hope that such exchanges will inspire concrete ideas for cooperation and establish long-lasting partnerships," says Vassiliou.

Following the EU-China Youth program, 2012 has been designated as the EU-China Year of Intercultural Dialogue.