Feeling welcome. Life restarts from here.

A clean bed, a hot shower, a change of clothes, and the certainty of a meal. But also legal assistance, psychological support, social and healthcare services, and job integration.

These are fundamental human rights that life on the streets takes away from you.
Life starts anew from here.

In the last year:

Progetto Arca’s approach to reception

In addition to social housing apartments, Progetto Arca manages large-scale facilities open year-round, day and night. We welcome some of the most vulnerable people: the homeless, often suffering from physical and mental health issues after years of living on the streets, and, in the Centri di Accoglienza Straordinaria (CAS), war refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors fleeing violence, persecution, and extreme poverty.

In our shelters, we offer refuge and protection, basic assistance, and response to essential human needs. But above all, we give our guests the opportunity to rebuild themselves, both as individuals and as citizens.

Multidisciplinary Teams and Pathways to Independence

With our multidisciplinary teams of professionals, and in collaboration with local public services, we create for each guest a social and educational project. The first goal is the recovery of their physical and mental well-being, and the ultimate objective is to help them achieve the greatest possible independence.

No matter how great the difficulties we face, we are never just the problem we are going through. We must see ourselves for the strengths we have – and those we can learn to express again.

Silvia, coordinator

A Special Focus is on Women and Children

Women and children are the most vulnerable groups in emergencies and conflicts. Thanks to the involvement of cultural mediators and psychologists, in our Centre of Extraordinary Hosting in Milan, we offer special programs for women and single mothers awaiting international protection, including:

• prevention activities such as screening and vaccination awareness
• sexual education programs
• courses on conscious motherhood and parental support

The aim is to spread the value of prevention and protection, support our guests in safeguarding their health and that of their children, promote knowledge of local services, and facilitate autonomous access to these services.

The Beauty project

For us, welcoming means offerineg spaces where people can reconnect with themselves and rediscover new perspectives for their life. Welcoming, well-maintained environments where they can feel at home and begin to restore the positive energy that may have been lost through the experience of displacement or the hardships of homelessness.

Since 2013, we have been carrying forward the Beauty Project through initiatives aimed at improving and humanizing reception spaces. These interventions are carried out with the active involvement of both guests and staff, who, as daily users of these spaces, contribute their experience and perspective.

We believe that even a temporary shelter should be a place of dignity, offering opportunities for relationships and moments of respite, restoring prospects and representing, in concrete terms, the promise of possible change.

We are all resonant bodies: those who observe and listen to beauty, resonate with beauty.

Alberto Sinigallia, president of Progetto Arca