It’s not an extraordinary story. It’s one of those that happens quietly, without headlines, without cameras. And perhaps that’s precisely why it’s so deeply affecting.
By Maria Cristina Maculan (Solidarity Unit, ANFN Italy)
A family like many others: father, mother, eight children, six of whom are minors.
One of the girls has Down syndrome, fragile and bright as only some children can be.
Then, suddenly, the collapse.
The same employer for both. The same failure.
The same day everything falls apart: the day of the layoff.
At first, they resist, as many do. Resumes, phone calls, closed doors.
Days that turn into weeks, weeks that turn into months.
Only their daughter’s disability pension is keeping them afloat.
Too little to live on. Too little to hope for.
The rent stops being a line item.
It becomes a countdown.
When eviction arrives, it’s not just a legal act.
It’s an existential sentence.
With documents in hand, they present themselves to social services. They’re not asking for miracles. They’re asking for a chance.
The response is technical, impeccable, cold:
the children in a foster home, the mother possibly taken in, the father… out of the picture.
It’s not a solution. It’s a sentenced separation.
And that’s where the real collapse begins.
He fades away. He can’t bear the thought of seeing his family torn apart.
He can’t bear the weight of his helplessness. He leaves. He runs away. He returns south to his relatives. She stays. Alone, with eight children.
Because mothers, almost always, find the strength to stay.
She’s left with a home that’s no longer hers. With a time that’s over.
It’s then that we learn of the situation. She calls me, tells me they’re members, that she’s going through a dramatic moment, and asks for our help. There’s a moment, in true stories, that’s unforgettable. She asks me for help to donate the furniture, not sell it, not sell it off, but give it away.
Through a network of solidarity, piece by piece, the house empties.
As if preparing, not for a move, but for an end.
As an association, we begin to evaluate what to do, especially since the eviction order is just a few days away. We try to understand, to talk, to find a place in the system.
But the system has already started, and once it starts, it doesn’t go back.
“The process is underway.”
“It can’t be postponed.”
“The process is ongoing.”
These are the words we hear, even as ANFN, from social services.
Cold, impenetrable words.
Meanwhile, a thin, almost invisible thread emerges, a possibility.
A nun tells us about a man in Germany; he’s a widower with two daughters.
He needs help. An empty house and a real need. It offers work, it offers an apartment, it offers dignity.
Not assistance, but life.
The time has come to make a decision, and as an association, we can only support the decision. The decision isn’t ours. We can only provide concrete assistance, covering the cost of plane tickets, which are too high for a family now deprived of resources.
However, the choice remains with the family, the mother: stay and separate, or leave together? They choose to remain a family.
At that point, there’s only one thing left to do: make it possible. A trip.
Eight children.
Luggage.
Plane tickets.
A strategy is needed that doesn’t hurt anyone. That doesn’t take from one to give to another. And so the solidarity of “Aiutiamoci” moves, silently, precisely.
As it can when it’s genuine.
I remember the day of the eviction well. We were helping clear out the last things.
The house was now empty. At the entrance to the building, one after another, everyone arrives: the bailiff, the owner, the locksmith, the social workers, a driver with a van.
Each with their own role. Each waiting. Some for a signature, some for a key, some for a family to be taken away.
It’s a still, almost theatrical scene. And then something unexpected happens.
As the family exits the front door, applause breaks out.
From the windows, from the courtyard, from the people around. Real applause.
To this day, I can’t say if it was for them, or because, somehow, everything was being resolved, or perhaps, who knows, to ease a collective sense of guilt.
Not everyone needs to know everything, and with a simple, almost banal excuse, we accompany the family to the airport. We tell them we’re taking them out for breakfast—a coffee for the adults and something hot for the kids.
No minibus, no foster home. Just one departure, eight children, one mother, an uncertain but complete future.
Upon arrival in Germany, something simple, and for that very reason, revolutionary, happens. The family exists. And it resists. It is recognized. Registered. And from that moment on, state grants, municipal support, concrete tools arrive. Not handouts, but rights.
And life begins again.
Today, however, I still have a question.
Who knows if, with tools like the single allowance, currently in force, a story like this would have turned out differently. Perhaps. But the question isn’t just economic. It’s more subtle. More uncomfortable.
When a family costs the state more if divided than if supported together… why is the proposed solution to divide it?
That day, as a family of families, we didn’t change the system.
We didn’t create revolutions.
We simply avoided a fracture. And perhaps, sometimes, this is the highest point one can reach: not saving the world, but preventing anyone from being broken.