How Argentina's 'Radio La Colifata' Changes the way People see Mentally-Ill Patients

An Argentinian radio station that hopes to break the stigma surrounding the general population's view of mental health patients is succeeding – by letting the world hear the patients themselves.

La Colifata, which broadcasts from inside Hospital Borda in Buenos Aires, has mental health patients as its hosts each time it goes live on air on Saturday afternoons, shared CityLab. Both inpatients and outpatients are featured in the show which is remixed and rebroadcasted in several formats via an Internet radio station, as well as a radio frequency.

To date, La Colifata's radio frequencies have reached further into the world, with about 50 stations replicating La Colifata in Latin America, Europe and Asia.

This approach, according to supporters, has succeeded in breaking down the wrong view that people have towards those who are residing inside mental institutions.

"People think that mentally ill people are constantly delirious, but that is not the case,” Marina Maddaleni, a therapist who supports La Colifata's work, said. “Depending on their [condition], they can sustain very logical, coherent, and informed conversations, and that surprises people 'outside.'"

La Colifata, which is a slang for “loon” or “crazy person,” has been on air for more than 20 years now. It was founded by Alfredo Olivera who, as a psychology student who kept visiting a psychiatric ward, was often asked as to how it's like to be there with patients.

According to Al Jazeera, Olivera then had the idea of letting the patients themselves describe what they were going through so that people will see what is really happening.

Since it was set up in 1991, La Colifata (or "Loony Radio") became a welcoming place for both patients and former patients, providing them with a healing and engaging community contrary to how institutions could become.

"La Colifata creates encounters and cooperation, which is the opposite of confinement and exclusion promoted by the environment," Victoria Noguera, who became La Colifata's coordinator since Olivera's departure, said.

Noguera said La Colifata has succeeded in giving patients and former patients the kind of healing community that they need. In fact, data collected through the years have shown that outpatients who regularly attended the radio show had lower readmission rates compared to those who do not attend.

Founder Olivera couldn't say it much better.

“La Colifata represents a broken space forgotten by others,” he said. “[It] is like great attempt to recycle those words and voices that have been discarded by the logic of the market they don't fit into.”