La Rondine is a centre hosting single mothers in need and their children, helping them to regain peace and autonomy and consequently live a happier and more independent life

The centre La Rondine offers:

  • support for mother-child family units with economic difficulties and housing problems
  • psychological counselling for mothers and children
  • socio-economic reintegration of these family units and support until they reach an economic, housing and organisational stability

Too many single mothers

In Italy there are many single mothers with tangible difficulties to find a job or a place to live, namely, the minimum to ensure themselves and their children a decent existence. La Rondine, in Milan, opens its door to help these women to stand up again. The facilities provided by Fondazione L’Albero della Vita can host two small family units for some months, while operators are working to guarantee mothers’ full social reintegration.

What La Rondine wishes and is able to offer is the following:

  • preventing the traumatic separation of children from their mothers, whenever the latter are psychologically and emotionally able —maybe with the help of a provisional support— to take care of them
  • reuniting family units when children have already been separated from their mothers, by restoring or ensuring the ideal living conditions

Anna and the reunited family

This is the story of a 33-year-old Ukrainian woman, Anna. This is the story about a small but great victory of La Rondine and Fondazione L’Albero della Vita. A story that gives hope to hundreds of women, who, like Anna, risk losing their children and the chance of building a family.

In her country, Anna used to work 18 hours a day for a starvation wage, but couldn’t support her three children. Her husband, lazy and violent, wasn’t indeed very helpful. Finally, five years ago Anna decided to leave Ukraine and come to Italy. Here she met another man she fell in love with. Anna got pregnant and then found out that he was married, so she decided to leave him. She was working for a cleaning company and in order not to lose her job, she kept on working until the day before childbirth. Having a job was too important to guarantee a future for her baby.

Back then her husband contacts her again from Ukraine: he wants to take care of the baby and she trusts him. But he hasn’t changed, wants to do nothing and still beats her. He even got to the point of reporting her to the police for allegedly abusing her baby and having the little girl taken from her by social services.

After one year of struggle, today Anna and her baby are finally together again at La Rondine: “My happiness —she explains— is the same of every mother: being a family again.”

How you can help

Support La Rondine now. Help many women to guarantee a future for their own family.