Machteld Busz moves to municipality of Amsterdam

Mainline’s director Machteld Busz is leaving our organization at the end of June. For twelve years she has dedicated herself with great knowledge and passion to drug users. Now she will work for the municipality of Amsterdam as a homelessness strategist to improve the living conditions of marginalized people on the streets.

Machteld Busz: ‘When I started at Mainline twelve years ago, our national team was looking to apply harm reduction to people who were using new drugs (besides heroin) in other ways (besides injecting). Harm reduction was firmly on the map with support from the Dutch government. Now more than ever our team is needed to make the unadulterated harm reduction sound in the Netherlands, and we are reaching a range of new target groups, despite the proposed cuts to our work. I hope that in the coming years, harm reduction will finally get the place it deserves: with sufficient resources and therefore with the full positive impact this approach brings.’

Ancella Voets, program leader Knowledge, Learning and Partnerships: ‘I fear we will have to hire at least three people to replace Mac. She has been invaluable to our organization and we will miss her terribly. But harm reduction is in her capillaries and Mac will certainly take that into her new work. And Mainline will of course continue to work with the same passion to put harm reduction on the map.’