Maria grew up in a typical urban family, but from a young age, she experienced the harsh realities of the adult world. At 13, seeking freedom and a sense of belonging, she was introduced to drugs. This marked the beginning of a long and arduous journey, filled with painful moments, until her ultimate redemption.
Narrator: Maria Chartofilakidou
Researcher: Konstantinos Kokiasmenos
Podcast Creation: Haris Pagonidou
Sound Design: Giorgos Ramantanis
Audio Editing: Enes Achmet Kechagia
Istorima is the biggest project for recording and preserving oral histories of Greece. More than 1,000 young researchers find narrators listen, collect and preserve stories of people from all over Greece: Stories of their hometowns, stories of love, stories that changed Greece or defined it, modern or old stories. Stories that are not recorded in the history books and that could easily be lost in time.
It was created by the journalist Sofia Papaioannou and the historian Katherine Fleming and is implemented with a founding grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), as part of its initiative to Restart and Empower Youth (see more on www.snf.org). More than 20,000 stories are gradually being published in full on www.archive.istorima.org. Excerpts of the stories are published in the form of podcasts, videos, or written stories on www.istorima.org.