Peru

What if care was no longer controlled by a single system?

In this #WhatWENeed submission, Carolina Diaz from Coalición Neurodivergente Peruana and TCI Fellow 2025 invites us to rethink who defines care and whose knowledge is valued through a photo submission.

Mad, neurodivergent people and people with psychosocial disabilities have always built care through lived experience, peer support, and community networks. This is a call to imagine care differently and to make space for many ways of sustaining one another.

What if we ended the monopoly on care
What if we ended the monopoly on care
For a long time, care for our psychic suffering has been defined and controlled by psychiatry and other clinical settings, as the only valid option
For a long time, care for our psychic suffering has been defined and controlled by psychiatry and other clinical settings, as the only valid option
Mad, neurodivergent people and people with psychosocial disabilities also build care through lived experience, peer support, and community networks
Mad, neurodivergent people and people with psychosocial disabilities also build care through lived experience, peer support, and community networks
To reimagine care is to question who gets to decide what counts as care and to recognise that there are multiple legitimate ways of sustaining one another
To reimagine care is to question who gets to decide what counts as care and to recognise that there are multiple legitimate ways of sustaining one another
It means moving away from treating mutual support as informal or secondary, and recognising it as a political, ethical, and necessary practice
It means moving away from treating mutual support as informal or secondary, and recognising it as a political, ethical, and necessary practice
It means trusting our collective capacity to support one another make decisions and care together
It means trusting our collective capacity to support one another make decisions and care together
Ending the monopoly on care making space for less hierarchical relationships grounded in trust autonomy and interdependence
Ending the monopoly on care making space for less hierarchical relationships grounded in trust autonomy and interdependence
What if we ended the monopoly on care
For a long time, care for our psychic suffering has been defined and controlled by psychiatry and other clinical settings, as the only valid option
Mad, neurodivergent people and people with psychosocial disabilities also build care through lived experience, peer support, and community networks
To reimagine care is to question who gets to decide what counts as care and to recognise that there are multiple legitimate ways of sustaining one another
It means moving away from treating mutual support as informal or secondary, and recognising it as a political, ethical, and necessary practice
It means trusting our collective capacity to support one another make decisions and care together
Ending the monopoly on care making space for less hierarchical relationships grounded in trust autonomy and interdependence