Michelle Mateus Yepes

Michelle Mateus Yepes is a psychologist and anthropologist from the Icesi University in Cali. With experience in scientific research and in social and public health intervention programs, especially in the area of mental health with people who use psychoactive substances. She is an activist for the protection of people who use drugs from a risk and harm reduction approach, participating in different local, national and international spaces to reduce risk and harm in the use of psychoactive substances.

She worked in the CAMBIE Program of Social Technical Action-ATS and in the Program for Risk and Harm Reduction of the Ministry of Health of Cali, where she supported the actions of the Access to Hygienic Injection Material Program by supplying drug injection paraphernalia , psychosocial accompaniment and inter-institutional management for the capacity to respond to the problem of drug use in Cali. She was also the psychologist in charge of the beneficiaries of the Methadone Maintenance Program in the city of Cali. She is part of the Colfuturo Talent Nursery, obtained the Colfuturo 2020 credit-scholarship, and was a fellow of the 2019 Diploma in Drug Policy, Human Rights and Health by the Drug Policy Program of the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) of Mexico. He is currently part of the Mental Health and Social Coexistence team of the Public Health Secretariat of Cali, where he leads the guidelines for addressing the use of SPA in the city.