After Coming Back Home

Once you’re back home, it can be helpful to revisit the notes, reflections, photos, and memories you collected during your project. With a little distance, the experience often becomes clearer: small moments gain new meaning, your learning is easier to recognise, and you begin to notice how this short but intense time has influenced your attitudes, behaviours, and next steps.

This stage invites you to look at the experience from the outside, connect what you learned to your everyday life at home, and recognise how the project continues to shape you even after it has ended.

Use the guiding questions below to explore this phase. They’re here to help you understand what this experience means for you now and how it is influencing your path forward.

  • How do I make sense of this experience now, with some distance?
  • How am I using what I learned about myself?
  • What do I miss about the volunteer country?
  • What has surprised me since returning home? Do I notice any changes in myself?
  • How has this experience shaped my thinking about diversity?
  • How have my priorities or perspectives shifted after this experience?
  • What attitudes or skills do I notice myself using naturally now?
  • In what ways do I see myself contributing differently in my community or relationships?
  • What do I want to continue practicing or developing in the future?
  • What’s my next step for learning or growth?

Feel free to answer the questions in any way you like - looking back through your notes, drawing connections, or simply noticing what thoughts and feelings arise. If you’d like support in organising your learning or connecting it to your future plans, you can choose one of the reflection methods below.

Ask yourself “What do I need right now?” and choose a method if you want to go deeper:

Purpose Method You will need:
To see the overall changes during the volunteering project Before and After  
To gather all my learning experiences and connect them to competences Harvest Time or and 
To turn learning into clear statements (Youthpass, CV, interviews) Cheat Sheet or 
To explore how my understanding of solidarity has evolved Bridge of Solidarity or or