vaplp@engageva.org
VAPLP Staff
Program Stewards
Our Program Stewards are VCET staff members who support the candidates and program participants from applications through graduation.
Nico Climaco (they/any)
Nico is a facilitator and relationship-builder working towards realizing racial and social justice in our organizations and communities. At VCET, Nico serves as the Director of Leadership Development where they lead efforts to strengthen the skills, resources, and capacity of Virginia's progressive ecosystem through initiatives such as the Virginia Progressive Leadership Program, [BIPOC Affinity Table], The Summit, The Chat, and ongoing workshops. They are invested in nurturing the garden where liberation can grow. Nico’s work lives at the intersections of learning, reflection, and action. A lifelong student, Nico is informed by roles of a guide, weaver, builder, and an Ella Baker-ethic kind of leadership.
As a queer Filipino and Puerto Rican (and openly proud Gemini), Nico has always been curious about the threads of culture and alternative practices to the traditional ways of doing. Politicized by their ancestral lineage and the work of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, Nico is invested in co-creating peer learning spaces and considers community-building as powerbuilding to be the basis of their work.
Nico resides on occupied Piscataway land (Washington, DC). They serve on the Board of Directors of Equality Virginia and Break Away. Nico graduated from James Madison University (go Dukes~) and completed continuing education programs with AORTA and LIFT Economy's Next Economy MBA. To know Nico is to know that they balance depth and levity thoughtfully, laugh deeply, study avidly, and play wholeheartedly.
Harmony Pierce (she/they)
Harmony is a Program Steward with VAPLP and Events and Trainings Coordinator with the Virginia Civic Engagement Table, and supports logistics and operations for our capacity building programs and trainings.
With their BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, they have a focus on education as a liberating practice and transformative justice within our communities. Dedicated to the ways in which we can create webs of care that build on and strengthen our networks, their experience has been with multiple organizations finding community based solutions to addressing systemic injustices, particularly within communities most affected by the carceral system and food and housing insecurity. Inspired by Black abolition feminism and liberation movements across the world, they are excited to continue expanding their ideas on what our roles as individuals are, within and outside of, a non-profit space.
Harmony now lives in Richmond, and is invested in the mutual aid work within the city. Outside of VCET, they also work as the Food Coordinator and Community Cook Day Organizer with RVA Community Fridges, a mutual aid organization fostering collaboration, support, and direct services to accessible food in the Greater Richmond area. As a human, Harmony believes joy can be revolutionary. They love being in nature, roller skating, biking around the city, reading memoirs, and watching reality TV (we all need balance in our lives).
Facilitators
Chlo’e Edwards
Movement Leadership
Chlo’e I. Edwards (she/her) is a policy strategist, healing justice practitioner, and creative changemaker whose work bridges systemic reform with artivism and community healing. She is the Founder of Her Changes and Transformative Changes, where she leads initiatives advancing public health, racial equity, education, civil rights, and violence prevention through a healing-centered lens. Edwards helped architect Virginia’s Racial Truth & Reconciliation Week, contributing to Virginia becoming the first Southern state to declare racism a public health crisis in 2021, and continues to design culture-shifting spaces such as the Crisis-to-Care: Black and Brown Leadership Collaborative and the Black Youth Mental Health Collaborative. She serves as Policy Director at New Virginia Majority and Program Manager with Words, Beats, and Life, using storytelling and poetry to drive civic engagement through her work with the DMV Youth Slam Team and Youth Poet Laureates. A Richmond History Maker and Style Weekly Top 40 Under 40 honoree, Edwards holds a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, Multicultural Literature, and Social Justice and a Master of Public Policy, bringing together policy, art, spirituality, and healing to cultivate leadership rooted in collective liberation and sustainable movement building.
Our facilitators are seasoned practitioners in social justice work. Each retreat, you will meet and learn with two new facilitators specialized in that retreat’s topic. After each retreat, you’ll have access to coaching office hours with two coaches to dive deeper with questions you have about that retreat’s topic.
Selections Committee
The Selections Committee is composed of VAPLP alumni and program staff. This team will be reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, and ultimately determining the participants of Pod 12.
Ashley Elstad, Pod 10
Ashley Elstad (she/they) a VAPLP alum from POD 10!! Ashley is a social worker advocating for justice in the Asian American community as the Advocacy Manager with Hamkae Center. Currently resides in Woodbridge, VA. Fun fact: I have a pet turtle named Pig!
Kristin Lennox, Pod 8
Kristin Lennox (she/her/we) resides on occupied Powhatan land in Richmond and graduated from The Great Pod 8 of VAPLP in 2022. Kristin has her own consulting practice Onward VA. Kristin is obsessed with youth power and radically imagining our liberated future. Prior to working around policy change, Kristin was a crisis and trauma therapist for 2–17-year-olds for almost 7 years and continues to provide therapy as a licensed clinical social worker.
As a facilitator, organizer, and community advocate, Kristin is inspired by abolitionist theories, Black feminist and Afrofuturist theories, the Womanist lens, Tricia Hersey’s nap ministry, and the Healing-Centered Engagement framework. In her free time, Kristin loves to read, craft and collage, practice mindfulness, take long meandering walks to nowhere, and indulge in cozy-gaming binges. Fun fact, Kristin once lived with elephants for a month in Sri Lanka and she tries to daydream about it as often as possible.
Cheyenne Nicholas, Pod 9
Cheyenne is a farming on Powhatan land outside of Richmond, Virginia. Kilunuk, meaning all of us in Lenape, is a mutual-aid focused cooperative where they are growing medicinal and culinary herbs with their partner. They love to read and are always working on a bunch of random projects, in and outside of the home!
Nicole Adams, Pod 11
Nicole has worked for over a decade as a direct service provider and advocate with adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities. She has a passion for building community power with other marginalized people. Rubber duckies are her favorite animals.
Kashish Pillai, Pod 10
an organizer, storyteller, and collaborator passionate about building people power and turning big ideas into real change. Saw/met Obama and JB on the same day.
Solomon Ayalew, Pod 11
Born in Gonder, Ethiopia, and raised in the United States, Solomon Ayalew has long lived at the intersection of cultures and communities. Navigating different spaces shaped his ability to communicate across differences and build meaningful, lasting relationships with people from all backgrounds. This cross-cultural fluency became one of his greatest strengths — allowing him to connect stakeholders to shared missions and inspire collective action.
Driven by a deep appreciation for narrative, history, and institution-building, Solomon elevates the stories within his communities that are most capable of moving changemakers toward impact. His work bridges research, strategy, organizing, and lived experience — ensuring that community voices remain central in decision-making spaces.
Throughout his career, Solomon has helped design and implement large-scale national initiatives, produced influential research, and convened policymakers, advocates, business leaders, and grassroots organizers around shared priorities. In addition to his policy and programmatic work, he has played a central role in building and expanding a major African diaspora membership organization — leading chapter growth, deepening civic engagement efforts, strengthening fundraising infrastructure, and expanding membership by hundreds across the DMV region. His leadership has focused on coalition-building, political education, and developing sustainable systems that allow community-led organizations to scale with integrity.
He holds a Master of Public Administration from American University, with a focus on nonprofit management and public policy, and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from The Ohio State University. Earlier in his career, he led youth development initiatives serving immigrant families across Ohio, raised significant grassroots funding, secured major grant investments, and oversaw programs supporting more than 1,000 immigrant youth annually.
With nearly a decade of nonprofit leadership experience, Solomon remains a consistent and vocal advocate for Black and African diaspora communities — bringing strategic insight, cultural fluency, and a long-term vision for transformative change.
Alexsis Rodgers
Community Organizing
Alexsis Rodgers (she/her) works to make Black communities powerful in politics through her work at Black Futures Lab and Black to the Future Action Fund. For more than a decade, Alexsis has worked to pass state laws to improve workers' rights, health care, and college affordability. Alexsis made history as a candidate for mayor of Richmond in 2020, finishing in second place and earning more votes than any woman in the city's history. She is a native of Hanover County, an alumna of Virginia Commonwealth University, and avid VCU basketball fan.
Kalia Harris
Movement Leadership, Community Organizing, and Organization +Team Development
Kalia Harris (she/ella) is Executive Director of Virginia Student Power Network (VSPN), supporting youth power building & organizing throughout Virginia. She was born and raised in the Richmond area. During her academic career, Kalia has engaged in various youth organizing campaigns and organizations, including VSPN as an undergraduate student at George Mason University working on educational and racial justice campaigns on her campus. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Community Health in 2016 and Master of Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Social Justice and Human Rights in 2019. Her academic scholarship focuses on Black women and non-binary liberation activists’ experiences with burnout and strategies for sustainability and healing justice.
Nisha Kavalam
Storytelling + Narrative Strategy
Nisha Kavalam has built her career around a simple truth: gatherings have power. With an academic background in Social Work as her foundation, she's spent years bringing people together across contexts: planning weddings, facilitating higher ed retreats, hosting events with Atlanta Business Chronicle, and running brand and events in an ATL startup hub. Today, she serves as VP of Atlanta Tech Week, shaping Atlanta's largest celebration of innovation and technology, while working full time as Community Manager at Florence Healthcare, where she designs global summits in the clinical trials industry and manages their worldwide community of research professionals. Nisha weaves her social work background in equity and inclusion with Priya Parker's philosophy into every space she creates. Oh, and she's never met a dog she doesn't like.
Mateo Gasparotto, Pod 11
I am a carbon-based life form living in Richmond, VA, I'm a campaign organizer with ACLU-VA and I love being in and building community. I'm excited to dig deep into the core of what we do as resources in our community and to build some strong relationships with the folks in our pod. I look like a big tattooed metalhead, and I am, but I'll challenge you all to figure out what band is nearest and dearest to my heart!
Sameen Piracha
Sameen is a force to be reckoned with. She started getting into good trouble at age 4, advocating for justice, equality, and the occasional extra helping of desserts. With a heart filled with compassion and a mind buzzing with ideas, Sameen is determined to leave a world better than the one she inherited. Armed with a quick wit and boundless determination, her contagious smile can disarm even the most stubborn cynic. Professionally, she is a master at transforming leaders into fundraising powerhouses, equipping them to dismantle oppressive systems with finesse. She skillfully navigates her practice through a racial justice lens, recognizing that discussions about money can be incredibly complex and emotionally charged. After all, we all know that money talks and it's high time we make it speak the language of justice and equality.
Kristin Lennox
Storytelling + Narrative Strategy
Kristin Lennox (she/her/we) resides on occupied Powhatan land in Richmond and graduated from The Great Pod 8 of VAPLP in 2022. Kristin has her own consulting practice Onward VA. Kristin is obsessed with youth power and radically imagining our liberated future. Prior to working around policy change, Kristin was a crisis and trauma therapist for 2–17-year-olds for almost 7 years and continues to provide therapy as a licensed clinical social worker.
As a facilitator, organizer, and community advocate, Kristin is inspired by abolitionist theories, Black feminist and Afrofuturist theories, the Womanist lens, Tricia Hersey’s nap ministry, and the Healing-Centered Engagement framework. In her free time, Kristin loves to read, craft and collage, practice mindfulness, take long meandering walks to nowhere, and indulge in cozy-gaming binges. Fun fact, Kristin once lived with elephants for a month in Sri Lanka and she tries to daydream about it as often as possible.