8 - Innovative Care for the Homeless Mentally Ill in Bogota, Colombia

Summary

While it is not easy to describe or define recovery in mental illness, looking at patients' lives and listening to their stories of change provide access to the experiential dimension of recovery. A series of interviews conducted for a program evaluation in Santafe de Bogota, Colombia provided us with the opportunity to learn about this experiential dimension with an imprint of Colombian culture.

Colombian culture may be seen in terms of a powerful Spanish influence upon the culture of the indigenous Indians, intermixed with the culture of Africans who were forced into slavery by the Spaniards. Colombians speak Spanish, are mostly Catholics, and while they see themselves as morally conservative there is a thread of liberalism running through Colombian society that influences many aspects of everyday life. Colombia is described by Gomez (1994) as a country where violence, insecurity, economic insecurity, and social tension are endemic. The country has suffered from persistent violence ever since independence from Spain. From the very beginning this violence revolved around class and stemmed from extreme disparities in wealth. Guerrillas who originally based their operations in the jungles slowly infiltrated the urban population. “Drug lords,” flourishing since the 1950s, convinced organized guerrilla movements to support marijuana and cocaine crops in exchange for money and arms. The drug lords have now emerged as a new class that has taken its place among the few who have plenty. Needless to say, they have not solved the poverty of the many.