As part of the Refugee Week Festival 2025, five civil society organizations collaborated to map the emotional landscape of Athens through the experiences of people with refugee and migrant backgrounds.

47 adults answered questions about where they spend their time, where they feel safe, where they enjoy themselves, where they feel uncomfortable or uneasy, and which parts of the city they choose for relaxation.

Using the map of Athens as a tool, participants captured their personal experiences in relation to the city’s geography. The main benefit is reflection on personal experiences in space, as lived by people with refugee or migrant backgrounds.

At a glance: contradictions, multiplicity of voices, and diverse realities.

Most responses trace paths around Kypseli, Omonia, Viktoria, Syntagma, and Pedion tou Areos. This invites reflection on whether—and why—some neighborhoods are less accessible, or why others may become welcoming spaces or even potential ghettos.

• Kypseli appears as a place of everyday life and safety, while at the same time being described as an “unpleasant place.”
• Kypseli and Viktoria are the only areas statistically significant in terms of safety. Additionally, participants spend a lot of time in these two neighborhoods. Thus, the sense of safety is closely tied to familiarity.
• Omonia remains a central hub but also a space of insecurity.
• Pedion tou Areos continues to be the main choice for moments of calm.
• Viktoria stands out as an example: for some, it is a place of safety or where they spend a lot of time, while for many others, it is simultaneously a place of discomfort or an “unpleasant place.” A core refugee experience is the involuntary loss of familiar spaces, making the creation of new familiar spaces a pressing need in multiple ways. Therefore, building communities and supportive networks within a neighborhood is an expected outcome.
• A small but notable percentage (7%) reported feeling uncomfortable or unwelcome in “urban” areas like Kolonaki, reflecting the sense that one feels more like a stranger there. Within their own community, there is relative safety, but beyond it, insecurity begins.

This emotional map reflects a city that “speaks” differently to each community and invites us to rethink it not only as a sum of infrastructures but as a living organism shaped by our stories, routes, and the places that do, or do not, accommodate us. The map is available here (in greek).

Our personal experience:

As we went out into the streets to ask people, it became clear that every response was a unique story.

Some were in a hurry and answered almost instinctively, while others had just arrived in Athens and looked at the map with curiosity.

This is when you realize that the same space is never the same for everyone—each person carries their own experiences, memories, and emotions. This is what makes the “emotional map” so valuable: it is not merely geography, but a collective memory and feeling built from many personal moments.