João Barbosa
João Barbosa
International Working Group Member
Mail: joao@youthrise.org
Country: Brazil, based in Canada
About João Barbosa
João is a Political Science and Human Rights student from Brazil, currently living in Tiohtià:ke-Montreal.
He has been involved with drug policy advocacy since 2017 when he was engaged with medical cannabis associations in Recife, his hometown. João’s activism falls under the intersection of criminal justice and drug policy reform. He currently works in Quebec with GRIP (Groupe de Recherche et d’Intervention Psychosociale) as a harm reduction worker in festive environments.
In his global activism, he is part of the International Coalition on Drug Policy Reform and Environmental Justice and for the past two years, he has been working as the Latin America Team Leader at Incarceration Nations Network (INN), managing regional partnerships, supporting INN’s Education Not Incarceration global initiative, with Brazil as one of its focus, and being involved with the Global Freedom Fellowship in South Africa and other projects at INN.
In the past, João has worked with drug advocacy and drug education programs with the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) and with Voxcann, a bilingual (French and English) Cannabis education platform in Montreal. During this time, he was also involved with research about the intersection of Cannabis and LGBTQIA2+ issues.