Jackie’s resilience against all odds has inspired us to continue helping her long-term, ensuring that all her hard work and dedication towards her child continue to benefit them both and pave the way for a brighter future. We hope you will join us in supporting her and little Lisa on this hard and difficult journey.

Jackie has always been reliable and hardworking – the colleague who showed up early, the friend who remembered birthdays, and the woman who tried to manage everything without complaining. But all that changed when her daughter, Lisa, was born and her foreign partner left Jackie alone to return to his country of origin. This all became even more difficult when Lisa was later diagnosed with autism at around the age of three.

At first, Jackie tried to keep going as if nothing had changed. She balanced speech therapy sessions, which are all held during the day, with work calls, social worker meetings, work and school meetings, and Lisa’s frequent meltdowns with important deadlines. She used her lunch breaks to fill out paperwork and juggle bills, and her evenings to research sensory tools and ideas on how she could further help Lisa. Her nights? Usually sleepless and full of anxiety.

Lisa’s father sadly had left the island. Jackie’s mother is disabled, her father passed away with cancer last year, and she has now has no family nearby who can help her. She has no safety net.

As Lisa grows older, the demands from school, social workers, and therapists have increased. Jackie tries to always remain calm and composed on the outside, but inside, she was a ball of nerves trying to keep it all together for Lisa.

Jackie used up all her leave, then her sick leave. She told HR she had the flu when in truth, she had sat crying in her car for an hour, unable to face the world. Her body began to break down: chest pains, trembling hands, constant nausea. She lost weight. Her hair thinned. Anyone who has gone through something similar can relate.

Eventually, a doctor told her what she already feared: “You’re not just stressed. You’re in a state of clinical anxiety. Your body is shutting down. You need to rest, eat healthy, and you need medication.”

He prescribed medication. Jackie took it out of desperation. Medication costs money, healthy food is much more expensive than pastizzi, pizza and pasta, whilst grateful for the help of the food bank food, sadly, food bank food is not the healthiest, unfortunately. She tries hard to give Lisa healthy foods, such as fruit, chicken, and vegetables.

To top it all, the pills left her dizzy and exhausted, like trying to swim through fog, trying to cope when you feel like you’re drowning. Her mind slowed. Her stamina drained. But at least the panic didn’t feel like it was choking her anymore.

Eventually, even her social workers suggested that she should stop working. It wasn’t a choice. It was survival; she needed to survive. Her daughter, now 6, has nobody but her.

When Jackie needed to be hospitalised, Lisa had to stay with foster carers; it broke Jackie’s heart.

Now she will have to survive on €650 a month in social benefits. She has to sell her car, so now she and Lisa have to walk everywhere or take the bus to appointments. Rent, mobile phone, food, and utility bills. What’s left doesn’t stretch far enough for healthy groceries, not enough for little Lisa’s special needs, not for daily living expenses. Jackie learned quickly how easy it is to fall through the cracks when you’re a lone parent with a disabled child and no one left to call.

But thankfully, Jackie has the Women for Women Foundation.

Jackie told us we are the only source of help that doesn’t ask her to justify her situation in pages of forms. That we didn’t make her feel ashamed for struggling. Instead, she said we listened. We believed her. We stepped in when no one else did, providing emergency food packages, vouchers, a laptop, clothes, and many essential items and services for her and Lisa, along with emotional support, all with a sense of dignity.

Through Women for Women, Jackie tells us she found a community of other women who know what it means to carry too much for too long. She is beginning to recover slowly; her medication is no longer making her dizzy, and she hopes to start studying soon so that when Lisa is slightly older and more independent, she can return to her job or find a better one.

There are still hard days. Most days, in truth, are still hard. But Jackie tells us she no longer feel completely alone “Lisa and I wouldn’t be able to survive without the constant checking in on us to see how we’re doing and knowing that when our fridge was totally empty or when our water heater was leaking and wasn’t working, we could find some help through the Women for Women Foundation”

Jackie is Lisa’s only support system, doing her best every day to help her with her studies and her therapy sessions. With your help and donations towards her situation, we can ensure that they both don’t fall through the cracks and continue to survive with dignity. Your help will also ensure that this resilient mummy will not give up, because she knows there’s a tribe of women behind her supporting her long term.

Just 2 euros a month can help us plan together with their social workers how best to support Jackie and little Lisa’s long-term goals, dreams, and ambitions, and to help them live with dignity and hope.