And the years go by with no hope

Vangelis, 59

06 October 2014

I turned 59 yesterday. Unemployed for 7 years. 3 years with no income. I have sent out my resume an endless number of times with all the different ways. In many interviews I was told ‘you start tomorrow, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s up to the management to decide’.

I support myself via acts of solidarity. I maintain my sanity thanks to the help of a psychiatrist friend who offers his service for free.
Otherwise, I would certainly have been a dead man by now…
Vangelis, 59

The ‘Unemployed Diaries’ (ImerologioAnergou.gr in greek) started out as 17 brief texts scattered in Christoforos Kasdaglis's book 'Anonymous Bankrupts' (Kastaniotis editions, 2012). The unemployed from across Greece, eponymous and anonymous, will be continuing the narrative by writing here. It is a volunteer initiative with the aim of breaking the taboo of shame and giving the unemployed a stage, so that they express themselves, recording their experiences in texts of up to 350 words. An internet venture that aspires to muster varied communication channels in order to maximize the result – that the unemployed find a voice which the dominant mainstream media and the political system have taken away from them.