Denicia Cadena, USA | Policy director at Young Women United (YWU), an organization that leads community organising and policy initiatives by and for self-identified women and people of color in New Mexico.
“I am working on a project around access to contraception with a group of researchers from the university of New Mexico and my organisation was brought on to make sure that the methodologies that they are using don’t include reproductive coercion and don’t shame young families and people who become parents as teenagers and really is inclusive of LGBTQ young people [...]. We also work on building educational equity for teen parents and work on framing addiction as a healthcare issue, making sure that women who are using substances while pregnant can get access to prenatal care and treatment and that they are not incarcerated for their substance use.”