"Bella Germany meets schönes Italy" is part of a wider project called „International youth work meets school“, which is a project launched by the city administration Leipzig in cooperation with the association of international youth work in Leipzig and funded by the German federal ministry of family, seniors, women and youth. Object of the project is for young people to organize an international youth exchange autonomously. So called “coaches international” support them, whenever they need help or got questions. Furthermore they accompany the participants during the period of the project of approximately two years. International experiences and intercultural competences won by that are important for personal development of adolescents despite social background or educated class. Those play a major role in dealing with friends, parents, teachers and later on in professional life. This circumstance belongs to the main objectives of the wider project as well as the single projects itself. In one of four schools, where the project takes place since February 2015 the so called group “Bella Germany” has been working on the objective to plan, organize and realize their own international youth exchange. 10 German members at the age of 13 until 16 participated in this group, which meets at the 35th high school in Leipzig. Informal learning gives them the opportunity to approach group of themes as tolerance, cultural conventions, social actuality, the foreign, stereotypes, language, history of other countries and more. Dealing with Europe and holding on to curiosity and interests led the German participants to Italy. They discovered cultural conventions there, which made clear which country to chose. In late 2015 our partner “Amici del tedesco” was found. The encounter of those German participants and 10 eight graders of the Anne Frank grammar school in Crotone, Italy was been prepared ever since. Detailed they planned their week together in August by discussing and balancing. Also they started looking for flights to Italy and got in contact with the Italian partner. Following this, 20 participants at the age of 13 until 16 years will meet in San Leonardo di Cutro in August 2016. All together they want to interfere the imagination of their own culture, and get to know cultural aspects of the partner country. Furthermore they want to cook together, detect similarities and differences between everyday life, spare time and school in Germany and Italy. Especially they want to make their own movie together, which is supposed to show a comparison of German and Italian everyday life. Therefore the adolescents are going to deal with their own environment, get together, open up for other cultures, gain an insight into another culture and especially work together on one objective. This movie will be useful as material for multipliers. Two participants describe it like that: “…a report that deals with showing special things and sights of Leipzig. It’s about showing our lives and when we are gonna be in Italy to see how’s life there? Italians should think about what they can show about their country and getting to know their culture. It’s about the project which we are preparing over a year and the travel within. This project is not only for us but for young people who want to follow up as well. Those can get an insight of how much work it is on the one sight and experiences you get on the other.” (Michelle and Julia, participants of the German high school). The adolescents will work hard for the contents and become experts. They chose their partner country and the right partner organization there, chose their own topic of the encounter, prepared a project week that follows their interests and they will plan and run their own workshops. Those processes are accompanied by self-reflective methods and group reflection , so the participants are aware of their own actions and classify those. All those characteristics of the project shall raise the participation of all young people with equal opportunities and intensify a European consciousness.