Loony Radio (Argentina) - alternative treatment for mental

[Luciano Dondero <DOND001@xxxxxx>]

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To: argentina-noticias@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: radio la colifata
Message-ID: <v01510101ad384473395c@[128.119.55.182]>

Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 7:20:15 PST


         BUENOS AIRES (Reuter) - They have a correspondent on Mars,
one who dispatches news from ``above heaven'' and yet another
who dubs himself the Emperor of Paranoia.
         No, this is no ordinary radio broadcast transmitted from
behind the faded pink walls of Borda hospital in Buenos Aires.
         This is ``Loony Radio.''
         In one of Argentina's largest psychiatric wards, patients
have been producing their own radio program for five years as
therapy, and to help demystify madness to those outside.
         Radio La Colifata, Loony Radio in Argentine slang, is taped
Saturdays and broadcast to Borda's 1,300 patients. Extracts are
played by a dozen mainstream radio stations .
         ``The insane are rejected and marginalized by society. This
puts a human voice on people who instil fear in the community,''
said Alfredo Olivera, the 29-year-old founder and coordinator of
the program. ``It is a link between the inside and outside. We
want to break the stigma and this helps them feel less excluded
from society.''
         Participating patients, most of whom are psychotic, wander
in and out of delirium but, in more lucid moments, touchingly
express their anguish, their needs and their hopes.
         On a recent Saturday, about 15 patients congregated around
an old wooden table with rudimentary broadcast equipment in a
courtyard of the institution that becomes a makeshift studio.
         One by one, they introduce themselves.
         Ever, a Bolivian Indian, reports from ``above heaven'' but
when he descends from his delirium he comments on more earthly
issues punctuated with words in his native Quechua tongue.
         Garces, who dabbles in homespun philosophy, invented the
radio's name and describes himself as the ``Emperor of
Paranoia'' because ``I am more schizophrenic than everyone.''
         Ramon Arturo summons memories of battle in the Falklands War
against Britain, but also recites folklore and informs a visitor
he won the Nobel Prize some years ago.
         Alfredo, given the microphone, will only sing.
         Angel is the creator of the Borda Tango Club.
         On Mars, the correspondent there reports, there is only
love. But on Earth, he says, there is only war, hunger, cold,
sadness and pain.
         There is a romantic segment of the show in which patients
sing ballads, followed by the news when they read and debate
newspaper headlines, and interview each other.
         One laments his family has stopped visiting him.
         ``You are not alone,'' another reassures him. ``You have
1,300 family members here.''
         During the two-hour program they will smoke frantically.
Some wander away and then drift back again.
         One Colifata success story is Adolfo, a patient who was
accredited to cover Boca Juniors soccer club on Sundays. He was
discharged but continued to cover matches. Now he has stopped
coming because he no longer needs Borda as a crutch.
         ``It's a way to leap across the wall,'' said Mickey, one
patient who actively participates. ``It's a link to society.''
         Olivera arrived at Borda in 1990 as a 24-year-old psychology
student to volunteer his time.
         ``I arrived with fear and expectation. I was moved,
overwhelmed by the state of abandonment,'' he said. ``These
people instil fear in people. In me they produced tenderness.''
         The radio idea came a year later when a station asked him to
field public questions about Borda. He thought there was no one
better than the patients to articulate their concerns.
         That led to a regular weekly Borda Column. The PanAmerican
Health Organization recognized it as the first radio in the
world to broadcast from a psychiatric hospital.
         Many stations that rebroadcast the program are community
outlets, but some are top-rated commercial channels.
         The hospital is indifferent, Olivera said, not obstructing
the show but not helping. He brings the equipment by bus every
Saturday with his wife, psychologist Maria Celia Vieira. One
radio station donated an antenna and others compact discs.
         ``It's a marvellous project,'' said Liliana Manna, executive
producer on an AM Del Plata show that with a million listeners
is one of Argentina's top-rated slots, and which uses the
Colifata reports. ``It's heartbreaking.''
         ``These are human beings and this helps them to feel not
like animals. They have things to say which are not so crazy.
They say things or ask questions we wouldn't dare say or ask.''
         Manna is at a loss to explain Radio La Colifata's success
with the public. ``The question is whether they feel sorry for
them or identify with some of the things they are saying.''
    ``If family and friends don't come,'' another Colifata
commentator counsels his fellow patients, ``it's not because
they can't come but because they don't want to, not for lack of
time or opportunity but because of lack of interest.''
         ``I feel alone in the inside of my body,'' muses Mickey, in
a broadcast whose rambling style belies an anguished
determination to return to the world outside.
         ``Enough of sorrow, try to live a phase of joy and
happiness, try to get my house, make a couple and once and for
all be a new trouble-free person, start from zero so things go
well, leave behind the past or I will never triumph in life.
        These are difficult moments but I must overcome them.''
--


--Luciano Dondero--



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