{"id":412,"date":"2026-03-02T15:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grassrootsinsolidarity.com\/?page_id=412"},"modified":"2026-05-20T09:39:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:39:31","slug":"rosa-e-v","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/womeninsolidarity.org\/en\/rosa-e-v\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosa e.V."},"content":{"rendered":"
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ROSA - Rolling Safespace<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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It\u2019s the morning after December 21, 2024. Across the world, many people with Zoroastrian roots have just celebrated Yalda Night* \u2014 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.<\/p>

I\u2019m 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\u2019t help but think: Wow, this is stunning.
Then I catch myself.
The Mediterranean.<\/p>

For countless people, this sea has become a graveyard \u2014 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.<\/p>

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.<\/p>

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.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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

A Mobile Safe Space in Greece<\/strong><\/p>

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 \u2014 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.\nThe truck is outfitted with a small medical consultation room, a tea kitchen, and storage for workshop materials. The van, affectionately nicknamed \u201cRosine\u201d (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 \u201cRosine\u201d (the Little Grape), is packed with big inflatable tents, canopies, and piles of toys.<\/p>

I spent several days alongside the \u201cCrewis\u201d \u2014 the team\u2019s nickname for themselves \u2014 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 \u2014 and see them being treated with dignity. Here, they hear gentle voices again. They are welcomed, not judged or dismissed.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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In the truck\u2019s Medispace \u2014 a private consultation area \u2014 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\u2019s* fears but to strengthen the courage they\u2019ve already carried so far.<\/p>

Care Work at the Edge of Society<\/strong><\/p>

Inside the ROSA truck, there\u2019s a multilingual booklet from the NGO welcome2europe titled \u201cInformation \u2014 for refugee women* in mainland Greece.\u201d
I flip it open and read:
\u201cThough you may feel far away from the cities and any help, we want to tell you that you are not alone!\u201d (\u2026) \u201cNever 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.\u201d
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 \u2014 if not for activists like ROSA, who have made it their mission to be present.<\/p>

I see the labor, the unpaid care work, taken on without question. It is, in fact, self-funded \u2014 the activists cover their own travel and food expenses in Greece.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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