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ROSA - Rolling Safespace

It’s the morning after December 21, 2024. Across the world, many people with Zoroastrian roots have just celebrated Yalda Night* — the night when light begins to reclaim the darkness. From here, the days will slowly start getting longer again. Around this winter solstice, people reflect on light, love, friendship, kindness, and compassion.

I’m driving along winding roads in the northwest corner of the Attica Peninsula. The sun is shining in a cloudless sky. With the windows cracked, the scent of Mediterranean plants drifts in, and the chirping and cooing of birds mix with the salty breeze. Every time I catch a glimpse of the turquoise sea sparkling in the distance, I can’t help but think: Wow, this is stunning.
Then I catch myself.
The Mediterranean.

For countless people, this sea has become a graveyard — a place where loved ones were lost, where trauma took root on the path toward hope, away from yet another nightmare. With a deep breath, the hard truth rises up inside me.

I know that countless women* arrive in refugee camps with chemical burns on their legs because they sit for hours on gasoline-soaked floors in flimsy inflatable rafts, holding their babies high to keep them out of the burning liquid.
I know that these children will carry a fear of water, of this very turquoise sea, etched into their bodies by the terror their mothers once endured.

I know, and I see, how these kids tremble and cry, too afraid to walk past the guards at the entrance to their container camps.

I know they shiver through winter in flip-flops and thin shirts.
And yet they want to stay.
At ROSA.

A Mobile Safe Space in Greece

ROSA is a grassroots NGO, founded by activists in Germany in 2021, with a simple but powerful goal: to bring mobile support to isolated refugee camps in Greece. They call it Rolling Saferspaces — feminist humanitarian aid that creates protected spaces where women* on the move need it most. Several days a week, the ROSA team drives their converted truck and a support van out to remote camps in Ritsona, Thiva, Malakasa, and Oinofyta. The truck is outfitted with a small medical consultation room, a tea kitchen, and storage for workshop materials. The van, affectionately nicknamed “Rosine” (the Little Grape), is packed with big inflatable tents, canopies, and piles of toys.
The truck is outfitted with a small medical consultation room, a tea kitchen, and storage for workshop materials. The van, affectionately nicknamed “Rosine” (the Little Grape), is packed with big inflatable tents, canopies, and piles of toys.

I spent several days alongside the “Crewis” — the team’s nickname for themselves — and saw why the kids show up long before anything officially begins and linger until everything is packed away.
Here, they can just be kids. They can play with toys, draw and paint, kick balls around. But more than that, this is a space where, even as they lose themselves in coloring or hide-and-seek under blankets, they can glance at their mothers — and see them being treated with dignity. Here, they hear gentle voices again. They are welcomed, not judged or dismissed.

In the truck’s Medispace — a private consultation area — mothers can finally speak. And here, beyond the fundamental human right of access to basic healthcare, something else just as vital happens: they are listened to. They can talk in safety and be taken seriously. The ROSA team carefully chooses their words, aiming not to deepen the women’s* fears but to strengthen the courage they’ve already carried so far.

Care Work at the Edge of Society

Inside the ROSA truck, there’s a multilingual booklet from the NGO welcome2europe titled “Information — for refugee women* in mainland Greece.”
I flip it open and read:
“Though you may feel far away from the cities and any help, we want to tell you that you are not alone!” (…) “Never forget that despite all the horrors you may have lived through until now (...), you had the strength to survive and to arrive here. We believe in you.”
When I look up,
I see massive barbed-wire fences sealing off the container camps. Busy highways are roaring past. There is no real infrastructure, no community.
These are places the world would rather forget — if not for activists like ROSA, who have made it their mission to be present.

I see the labor, the unpaid care work, taken on without question. It is, in fact, self-funded — the activists cover their own travel and food expenses in Greece.

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I see young people setting out because they want to help, to contribute, to hold on to a vision of a world built on humanity and solidarity. They are people who voluntarily leave home to stand beside those forced to flee theirs, driven by nothing more or less than the desire to help others survive.

Like Samiye (name changed), whom I speak with at length. She fled from Kabul, Afghanistan, with her five-year-old daughter. She first tried to rebuild her life in Iran — a country where Afghan children are barred from schools, where Afghan women* face daily humiliation. She stayed until despair grew so great, she risked everything and set out on the long journey to Europe. Kabul. Daughter. Woman. Life. Education. Stoning. Europe — and especially Germany — carries a deep responsibility here. And the women* who make this journey carry enormous weight on their shoulders, enormous fear in their hearts, driving them to step into a dinghy on a stormy night, in search of hope.

ROSA’s Everyday Work to Help Women* and Children in Need

At ROSA, the activist women — doctors, midwives, craftswomen, and more — often don’t know each other when they arrive. Most rotate in on cycles of five to twelve weeks. They stay together in a rustic Greek house, surrounded by mountains and fields, with space to sleep, cook, gather, share meals — and laugh.

The Crewis run on a detailed schedule: Who’s in charge of what? When’s check-in? When do they set off? Who’s driving which vehicle? Who’s handling setup and takedown? Who speaks with the guards or police? Who welcomes newcomers at the camps? Are there weather alerts? Wildfires nearby?

All of this is carefully coordinated in daily planning meetings. Meals are cooked and shared, shopping and packing handled together, dishes washed as a team.

Of course, things rarely go perfectly. But even when plans shift, one thing holds steady: the goal of giving women* and children, caught in an overwhelming situation, a few hours of care and safety. Alongside medical advice, women also receive legal information — access that can mean everything in a country where the chance of winning asylum is under 0.1 percent.

Even after the Crewis wrap up their day at a camp, the work isn’t done: supplies need to be unpacked, gear cleaned and dried, trucks refueled and checked, groceries bought, dinner made. They prep for the next day, connect with ROSA groups back in Germany (where local chapters now exist), and reflect — often late into the night.

During the winter solstice of Yalda Night, thoughts turn to family and those who have passed. People remember beloved relatives who are no longer with them. But the night also symbolizes the birth of new light. It’s a time to make plans for the year ahead.

“Solidarity with women* on the move and all those standing with them and in memory of those who didn`t make it!” (from the booklet “Information — for refugee women in mainland Greece”) *Yalda Night is an ancient Iranian festival celebrated on the longest, darkest night of the year, observed in Iran, Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan.