Hotel Rovies
Hotel Rovies
Hotel Rovies
is located in the village of Rovies, on Evia, Greece’s second largest island. The Greek NGO SolidarityNow, with support from the UN refugee agency – UNHCR – administers Hotel Rovies as part of a wider effort to move refugees in the reunification and relocation programs out of tent camps and other temporary accommodations. SolidarityNow also hired additional staff from the local community to provide for the specific needs of the refugee residents. The owner of Hotel Rovies and the staff continue to play a leading role in the day-to-day life of its current residents, providing services, support, activities and cooperating closely with the residents in all aspects of their daily lives. Other NGOs provide specialized services, such as medical and legal support, on a regular basis. The residents themselves engage in a range of activities, including language classes for the children, outreach to the larger community, cooking and so on.
We visited Hotel Rovies between May 23rd and May 27th. We lived in an annex to the main hotel, conveniently located right on the beach, which we were unfortunately too busy to make use of. Our days were spent at the hotel, meeting and interviewing the residents and competing with the children for internet access.
Blogs about Hotel Rovies and its residents
Between Two Deaths – بين موتين
How do you feel when you are lifting your child onto a desperately overloaded, leaky, half-deflated rubber raft with a sputtering motor, with everything you had built in the life behind you destroyed forever and the very real possibility that some or all of you may...
More Rovies
It has taken me over a week to write this post, as I was so moved my our time in Rovies. Rovies broke my heart. By that I mean it grew several sizes in sensitivity and empathy. Rovies is a wonderful place, as perfect as could be imagined. It is run by dedicated,...
Manar’s Story
WARNING: This may be the longest and most convoluted blog post you will ever encounter. It talks about a particular family's journey from Syria to Europe, but it also lays out the complex and opaque rules and procedures that govern their lives after they land on...
Back to Rovies
Evia is Greece’s second largest island, after Crete. Because it lies just east of the Greek mainland, many people don’t even realize that it’s an island. After filming in Thermopyles, our next destination was Hotel Rovies, on Evia. We left Athens in the afternoon,...