A Letter from Aisha Chaudhri and ICAH's new Co-Director, Choya Webb!

Celebrating Alyssa Vera Ramos's 7 years with ICAH as she departs and welcoming Choya as our new Co-Director!

Dear ICAH supporters, conspirators, and community,

The metamorphosis that ICAH has gone through during our re:Birth, and really the past few years, has been transformational on so many levels. We have been able to assess and refine our values while creating pathways in our internal and external work to align with them (as highlighted in our re:Birth process and plan). And we have been able to continue building an organizational culture that both reflects what we’ve identified and how we ebb and flow as a team and as humans.

A key feature of our re:Birth has been collaboration with shared power for transparency, accountability, and sustainability. This has allowed us to invest in models and structures, like co-leadership at every level of our work, that can adapt because they thrive on collaboration. By engaging in non-hierarchical collective decision-making, we have been able to decentralize power and create a more sustainable structure for our team through communication and coordination, including one that allows us to define and redefine our relationship to the work. And after being staff at ICAH for over 7 years, and working with ICAH in other capacities for even longer, Alyssa Vera Ramos made the decision to transition out of the Co-Director role.

Alyssa has supported and worked across ICAH’s many advocacy, organizing, and education programs and campaigns instilling them with the art, theatre, and cultural strategy of For Youth Inquiry (FYI). Her creative genius is rooted throughout ICAH’s most impactful projects and will continue to shape and inspire our work as we collaborate in new ways. Additionally, Alyssa’s thoughtful support through the re:Birth process and her transition allowed us to lean into the new structures and processes we created and collectively decide how we would move forward. Simultaneously, we continued to foster our virtual programs and secure revenue while maintaining our commitment to our re:Birth plan. ICAH continues to be a place for innovation as the fruits of our re:Birthing labor thrive and as our team generates space for new growth.

And after much thoughtful work and collaboration with the staff, we are excited to share that we have new, but very familiar leadership alongside Aisha. We are so incredibly thrilled to share that Choya Webb is our new Co-Director! Through several staff-led leadership transition planning sessions as well as Alyssa’s recommendation, Choya comes to this role already having demonstrated growth, commitment, and leadership at ICAH over the past 5 years. Aisha shares that, “From bringing creative solutions and tangible tools to helping us recenter spaciousness and interrupt the culture of urgency Choya has been instrumental in keeping ICAH connected as an organization and a community and I’m honored and excited to co-lead with them.” Please join us in welcoming Choya into this new role.

As a 45-year-old organization, we’ve only been able to stay relevant because we have been accountable to ourselves and our communities because we have evolved. Starting out as a coalition of adults to end “teen pregnancy” to becoming a youth-driven Reproductive Justice organization to support the sexual health, rights, and identities of youth takes a lot of bravery and a lot of labor. Living our values takes a lot of intentional labor, care, accountability, and patience and we still need time to transform and rest. We still need support from our conspirators to continue raising a re:Birthed ICAH. We fully believe in our success in working through transitions as a means to transform ourselves and ICAH as we have demonstrated time and time again. And with your support, blessings, and love we will!

With love, 

Aisha + Choya

Below is a gorgeous farewell letter and call to action from Alyssa Vera Ramos.

We encourage our supporters and conspirators to read on for her words and celebrate her contributions at ICAH!

Dear ICAH Community,

It is with overflowing, all-encompassing emotion that I share the news that I have transitioned out of my role as ICAH’s Co-Director. I leave my position on staff after 7 years at this beautiful organization that shifts culture with respect to young people, toward a world of reproductive justice.

I carry with me a deep respect for ICAH’s presence in the world. I have steadfast faith in the future of the organization (did you see the re:Birth plan?!), but most importantly, in the people that continue to steward it. I have unwavering confidence in Aisha Chaudhri as remaining ICAH’s Co-Director, and in Kat, Grey, and Choya – ICAH’s visionary, tenacious staff.
I know that this is only one ending – and so, one beginning — of many. To that end, I leave with a benediction for you, for me, and for our collective future. 

May we trust youth
May we follow young folks’ lead
May we center and fight like hell for transgender folks
May we center and fight like hell for gender nonconforming folks
May we center and fight like hell for Black folks
May we take abolitionist action
May we practice disability justice 
May we expose crisis pregnancy centers
May we uproot shame
May we create more participatory education
May we honor cultural work
May we see invisible labor
May we learn comprehensive sex ed at every age
May we ask questions 
May we practice and fail and practice again
May we go slower
May we honor the staff of ICAH
May we honor the members of ICAH’s networks
May we liberate abortion
May we show up for pregnant and parenting young people
May we show up for queer young people
May we consistently interrupt injustice
May we garner people power
May we gather
May we practice emergence
May we make thoughtful decisions with emotional knowledge
May we experience abundantly funded justice work
May we resource our people
May we investigate our growth edges
May we move at the speed of trust
May we listen
May we apologize
May we unpack our harmful behavior
May we name and shift white supremacy/perversion culture
May we pivot
May we follow beneficial digressions
May we experience pleasure
May we build intergenerational relationships and collaborations
May we make art 
May we fund artists
May we play 
May we play games
May we change hearts and minds
May we get rid of unjust laws
May we consent (or not)
May we honor our own and others’ sense of self
May we laugh
May we take breaks
May we take longer breaks
May we consider each other
May we drink more water and eat good snacks
May we relish our relationships
May we nourish ourselves and our communities
May young people be safe, affirmed, healthy, and free.

With so much love,
Alyssa

I WANNA LEARN ABOUT REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

I WANNA LEARN ABOUT SEX EDUCATION/SEXUAL PLEASURE SYLLABUS

I WANNA LEARN ABOUT LIBERATION SYLLABUS

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