INTERNATIONAL ROLLESTON AWARD: Liz Evans & Mark Townsend
NATIONAL ROLLESTON AWARD: Inés Elvira Mejía Motta
CAROL AND TRAVIS JENKINS AWARD: Judy Chang
GILL BRADBURY AWARD: Sue Purchase, Harm Reduction Sisters
BROOKLYN MCNEIL RAE OF HOPE AWARD: Poonam Dhaulakoti, Recovering Nepal
2025 winners: Liz Evans & Mark Townsend, founder and former director of PHS Community Services Society – INSITE.
This award is a recognition to Liz Evans and Mark Townsend's groundbreaking contributions to harm reduction, housing-first policies, and the global response to drug use and mental health challenges. Through visionary leadership, innovative strategies, and unrelenting advocacy, their work has saved countless lives and reshaped public health systems worldwide.
Liz and Mark's daughter Aza joined Liz on stage at HR25 to accept the award.
2025 winner Inés Elvira Mejía Motta is a pioneering Colombian psychologist, researcher, and consultant with over 30 years of experience in public policy, harm reduction, and treatment related to drug use, HIV, and hepatitis. She is the mother of harm reduction in Colombia.
2025 award winner: Judy Chang.
Judy is not simply a leader. She is a force of nature who has redefined what it means to fight for justice. As a woman who uses drugs with over two decades of lived experience, she has transformed INPUD, the international peer-led organisation that she led for nearly eight years, into a global beacon for peer-led movements, proving that true change begins when communities take the helm.
2025 award winner: Sue Purchase from Harm Reduction Sisters (HRS).
Sue embodies Gill’s spirit and determination, working tirelessly to provide low-barrier access to harm reduction supplies like clean needles, naloxone, and opioid agonist therapy.
The winner of the 2025 award, selected by the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation (CDPE), was Poonam Dhaulakoti from Recovering Nepal, for her abstract 'Enforcement of Harm Reduction: Prevention, Healthcare, and Treatment Services for Women Who Use Drugs in Nepal'.