Hello, my name is Gloria. I am a twenty year old girl from Germany and I want to share my personal experiences about the European voluntary service which I did for almost one year now.

Making this experience was something completely different for me, comparing to everything I did before in my life. I just finished my high school and then I started this project. I never lived alone before and certainly not abroad, with completely foreign people. The best thing about the whole project, which let me grow the most, was exactly this experience I made in the flat. It was great to live with five completely different people, with different personalities, from different cultures and even with different religions. I always thought that I am already an open-minded person, but during this last year I even became more open-minded.

Honestly this journey was not always easy. It is really nice to meet and live with so many different people, but it is also very difficult, especially in the beginning. You have to get used to everyone’s habits and personalities. I learned that it is not always easy to understand, why people are doing things in a completely other way then I was used to do them. I think for them it was the same on the opposite side, but if you know each other already for some months it is getting easier and suddenly you realize, that these foreign people became your second family.

I have a sister, but I never shared a room with someone. Now I shared my room for one year and I cannot imagine how it will be to live in one room alone again. Before I came to Italy, I could not imagine that I would survive one year without any private space, but I did not only survive, I even liked to share my room. It was a completely new experience, but you start to care more about other persons and to share everything and this is so important in life. If there are any problems communication is the only way to solve them, another thing I learned this year. You are just forced to communicate, to discuss, to solve problems together, all the time and I will have these communication- skills for all my life now. Before coming to Italy I was kind of an introvert person and now my relatives are already telling me that I am way more self-confident and sociable than before. Moreover I became extremely independent and more responsible, because I had to manage my own household. I had to wash alone, to cook alone, to go to the shops and manage to use my pocket-and food money wisely. I was really afraid to be completely on my own, but the good thing about living with five other people is, that you can always help each other and share your experiences.

All in all I can say that I developed my way of thinking during this year because of meeting so many new people, also in my workplace. For sure I did not become a completely new person, but I changed and I believe for the good, because many of the skills and new perspectives of live that I gained here are extremely useful for my future life.