CanWaCH delegation at ICFP 2025: Five questions with Lee Allison Clark

Hosted in Bogotá, Colombia, the 2025 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) saw the global community gather from November 3 to 6 to share knowledge, strengthen partnerships, and drive global progress to sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender equality. CanWaCH was pleased to join the conference and support the attendance of youth and delegates from organizations across our membership. The following Q&A is part of a series of interviews with members of the CanWaCH delegation. Read all of the delegation’s insights on Write to Thrive.

Why did you want to attend ICFP 2025? What drew you to being part of the CanWaCH delegation? 

I wanted to attend ICFP 2025 because the conference is one of the few global platforms where research, policy, implementation, and lived experience converge to shape the future of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). My work has consistently sat at the intersection of homelessness, health, and the rights and safety of women and gender-diverse people, particularly those most marginalized by colonial systems and structural inequities. ICFP offered the opportunity to strengthen that lens by learning from global models of community-driven care, task sharing and power shifting.

I was drawn to the CanWaCH delegation because Canada is at a critical point: we have made significant commitments on SRHR globally while still confronting persistent gaps at home, including for Indigenous Communities, people experiencing incarceration, people experiencing homelessness, and youth. Joining CanWaCH allowed me to be alongside a Canadian perspective that is honest about our realities while learning from countries advancing SRHR in complex contexts. It also gave me the space to bring back lessons that can inform Canadian advocacy and my own work across the homelessness x health x womxn nexus.

What was a moment at ICFP 2025 that made you stop and think differently about an issue? Did you hear a perspective that challenged your assumptions or changed your mind?

A defining moment for me was during the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) pre-conference, when speakers described the coordinated nature of anti-gender movements. I knew resistance existed, but hearing how methodical, well-funded and internationally synchronized these networks are forced me to rethink how we protect rights, especially for young people, low-income womxn and those without stable housing or safety.

Another defining moment for me was during the Equity Plenary, where speakers reminded us that “data must serve justice.” Listening to leaders speak about colonial aid structures and the need for community-led action resonated deeply with my work on homelessness. Too often, systems talk about “vulnerability” while refusing to shift power or invest in low-barrier, gender-based, harm-reduction, culturally grounded care. The reminder that communities not only understand their needs but already hold the solutions pushed me to think more intentionally about how we design SRHR services for people living without housing, particularly mobile care, trauma-informed models, and safety-first frameworks.

If you had to describe ICFP 2025 in three words, what would they be?

Intersecting. Political. Mobilizing.

Intersecting, because issues around health access, safety, gender-based violence, race, ethnicity, occupation, and poverty showed up everywhere. We never discussed any topic in isolation; we are connected in a complex web. We cannot have one thing without the other.

Political, because SRHR is shaped by power, ideology, and contested narratives.

Mobilizing, because the conference energized collective action and made clear that we need to broaden who is considered part of the SRHR ecosystem. I also feel more compelled than ever to step into the gaps I see and to get the mic to the people who need it most.

Are there parts of the conference you found challenging? If so, how did you navigate those moments?

Several sessions were challenging, especially those highlighting the layers of reproductive injustice faced by people living on the margins (from giving birth while incarcerated to being surveilled during labour to travelling hundreds of kilometres for abortion care). These stories mirror the realities I see through outreach work with people experiencing homelessness, where safety, privacy, and autonomy are routinely compromised.

Navigating these moments required grounding myself in the principle repeated throughout the conference: safety is foundational, not aspirational. That framing helped me move from the emotional weight of the stories to a clearer sense of accountability around systems change.

I also found it challenging to see how often homelessness and housing insecurity were absent from discussions on access. To address that gap, I prioritized sessions led by leaders from the Global South, Indigenous Communities, and youth movements whose approaches already integrate social determinants, structural inequities and community control — models that directly inform SRHR delivery for people experiencing homelessness.

If you could have added one more topic or session to the agenda, what would it have been?

I would have added a dedicated session on SRHR for people experiencing homelessness, centred on the frontline realities of womxn living without housing or safety. Homelessness fundamentally shapes access to contraception, abortion, IPV support, CSE and reproductive autonomy, but remains underexplored in global (and national) SRHR conversations.

This session could have addressed:

• Low-barrier, mobile, and street-based SRHR models.
• Contraception access for unsheltered people.
• Trauma-informed CSE for youth experiencing homelessness.
• Reproductive coercion in contexts of housing precarity.
• How policing, colonialism and poverty intersect with SRHR.
• The role of community-led services in building safety and trust.

Given my commitment to the intersections of homelessness × health × womxn and my work in street outreach and system reform, this is the conversation the global community urgently needs.