The initiative took place over a period of two years from 2014 to 2016. In that time 41 students of the College for Nursery Education of the Schulverein der Kreuzschwestern Linz did a 3 - week placement in different childcare institutions (creche, nursery school, after school club). The participating German partner institutions were the Professional Academy for Social Education in Nördlingen and Passau as well as the Professional School for Social Education Marianum in Allensbach - Hegne. Due to their active participation in the childcare institutions, our trainees gained a lot of experiences ans also hat the chance to broaden their horizons in professional terms. To ensure a qualified handling of the chores given to them, they hat to produce written "lesson plans" together with observations of the daily life in the institutions. In addition to that professional exchange with the institutions' staff encouraged critical reflexions of their work and enabled the trainees a step forward in their professional and personal competences. The various fields of work made them see daily routines from a different angle and promoted their understanding for different organizational structures, diversity and lived acceptance. They also benefited from seeing and experiencing how children from diverse cultural backgrounds were received and promoted in the institutions. Thus the motiovation for the project - the development of intercultural competences - really ot into the focus of the whole programme. All these factors put together are a huge enrichment for the trainees' future careers in childcare as they had the possibility to experience first hand how complex their chosen profession can be. It was, however, not only the professional side that challenged the trainees and made them develop a new independence. Also their daily life in Germany differed a lot from their life at home. They had to handle it completely independently from their families and from school in terms of their ability to work in a team, their willingness to cooperate and their empathy. All in all, the project enabled our students to mature not only in a professional but even more so in a personal way and the Europass will always be a reminder of these valuable experiences for them.