The spectator., 1919-03-04
'. W. C. 4. OPENS
 WORK IN ITALY
Tea and Club Rooms Opened for
 American Women.
Mise Charlotte Nlven, Director of itat tan Work, Prepares for Influx of
 Anne rican Woman Studenta.

Italy Is now included in tho wa, work of the American '. w. c. A.
 Miss Mabel Warner o1 Salina, Kan. and Chicago left Paris q few days ago for Rome, where she will be In charge of Hostess House for American girls employed there by the American Red Cross, the Embassy and the new Tu- berculosis Commission. Miss Warner has been director of the Y. W. 0. A Hostess House at Brest, France.
 Miss Warner will open tea room and club rooms where the American women can gather for social th ,es. Rome is harboring a refuge population of about 10000 and accommodations are difficult to find.
 The work in Rome was started as direct result of the appeal of Miss Charlotte Niven, one of the National Y. W. c. A. secretaries in Italy, who Is spending few months in France as advisor in the French work.
 Miss Niven's dreams of Y. W. 0. \ work in Italy include the maintenance of a residence for non-Italian women, who, she feels. will come to Italy in great numbers after the war to study music and art.
 q believe at this time such project is particularly important because wo- men from other countries should be encouraged to come to Italy to replace the great numbers of German women who flooded Italy in the past, many of them paid agents of their govern ment" Miss Niven said in discussing her plans.
 Miss Niven has asked the American Y. W. c. A. to aid the Italian Associa- ton In establishing . center, perhaps at Genoa, with two American secre- taries, with physical and recreational training, to act as q training school for Italian women Tn connection with ii her plan would include Hostess House for girls passing through the city or employed there. Such center would become eventually the center for all Y. W. C. A. work In Italy, both Italian and foreign.
 In her formal appeal for help for the Unione Christiana Delle Giovani (ths Italian name for Young Women Christian Association) Miss Niven has emphasized two facts, the poverty o1 the Italian Association on the one hand and the need and opportunity on the other for an American program ir Italy at the present time.
 Miss Niven's favorite way of Illus trating the friendliness of the Italian woman to America is by telling the story of the Italian mother who sait she had taken down the picture of tht Madonna which had hung for many years over her bed and was putting 1T its place one of President Wilson.
 "In our work In the Unione we have ! lacked trained leadership n well ai the material resources to give such training. We have had no means tt buy modern equipment. Consequent! we have not the visible results oi
 
 Feeble as our work may be. 1t i not useless. Many girls in all parts ot Italy have told us how much tn, Unione meant in their lives. Italian girls are touchingly grateful for ths smallest efforts. They respond eager 1 ly to friendiness.
 There is no other agency doing fl 1 Italy what the Association is trying tt i do"
 1 Miss Niven hes spent the past sever years in work with the Italian wo men, starting as director of hostel, ol l boarding home, for Italian women stu dents at Florence. She is an Amerl ] can from New York, where she wal ! cue time head of the ChristadOra Set clement House