“Every year again,” as the song goes at this time of year. For many, the Christmas season is a time to slow down, to unwind, a time to reflect on what really matters – preferably spent with family and loved ones. How else should one pass these dark days if not with the glow of Christmas lights, a mulled wine at the Christmas market, and joyful anticipation of New Year’s Eve and the year ahead?
By green helmets
Bonn, January 04, 2026 – Yet it is precisely at this time that nine volunteer Grünhelme forgo this shared time with family and friends. Unlike most people, who indulge in Christmas baking at home and reflect on miracles, they focus on what really matters: they are working on a different, quite important preparation for the new year – a new year on the high seas.
For the second year in a row, the Grünhelme are cooperating with the sea rescue organization RESQSHIP e.V. and working on the motor sailer Nadir to make it seaworthy again. While winter storms rage in the Mediterranean and churches near and far sing of a more just world, the volunteers are working very concretely toward it. The engine is serviced, the hull de-rusted, the structure reinforced, tanks inspected, and the interior refurbished. Similar procedures were carried out a year ago, but work at sea places enormous strain on the material. This stress test has not gone unrewarded: since the last shipyard period in December/January 2024/25, RESQSHIP has rescued 1,855 people from acute distress at sea with the Nadir – even though the vessel was detained twice by the Italian coast guard between missions.
In these days around Christmas, the question is therefore not what we can do to experience Christmas miracles and make the world a little more just, but why Europe chooses to actively prevent them. For where, if not right on our “doorstep,” should we stand by people and protect them from distress at sea and certain death? Who, if not those who risk their lives in the hope of a better future, can teach us to look to the future with hope again?
So we ask: every year again? We believe that another shipyard period will be due next winter as well – and we will gladly be there again. Will you?
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