Chlo’e (she/her) is the Chief Executive Officer of Transformative Changes, which challenges the status quo in the pursuit of justice and human liberation through transformation of self, relationships, and community. She works to center the needs and aspirations of historically marginalized communities to shift power to people in the social justice movement space.

Edwards is also the Policy Director at New Virginia Majority and Adjunct Faculty of General Education and Social Justice at Southern New Hampshire University. In community, Chloe is mom to Leo, a therapy dog, and a certified social emotional learning facilitator, mindful movement and breathing teacher, and healing-centered engagement practitioner. She serves as the DMV Youth Slam Team Coach and Youth Poet Laureate Advisor at Words, Beats, and Life.

Chlo’e is an alumna of VAPLP’s Cohort 7 and most recently, served as a mentor for Pod 10. She has proudly put multiple people on to the program and has developed long-term friendships as a result of the experience. Fun fact? While an artivist, she is upping her artistic talents by taking voice lessons to become a gospel singer!  

Elyssa Feder (she/her) is the Executive Director of Rising Organizers. She has over a decade of experience as an organizer and trainer for social movements, and has held roles as the Training Director for EMILY’s List and Deputy Training Director at Priorities USA, the largest Democratic Super PAC. While at EMILY’s List, she created multiple new training programs, including the Ignite Change Fellowship, which trained women from underrepresented communities to increase their presence in political office. She co-founded Rising Organizers in 2016 to provide core grassroots organizing skills to emerging activists and organizers. The organization has since gone on to train nearly 4,000 individuals and hold fourteen intensive community organizing fellowships, with alumni now organizing in states across the country.

All told, Elyssa has trained over 10,000 activists, political operatives, and candidates in the pursuit of social justice and civic engagement. In 2020, Elyssa was recognized for her work by being named one of Washingtonian Magazine’s 40 Women Under 40.

Irene (she/her) served as the Executive Director of the Virginia Civic Engagement Table (VCET). Prior to VCET, she served as the Senior Director at Crowdpac, a tech platform focused on combating the influence of big money in politics.

Recently, Irene was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, becoming the first Korean American woman to serve in the General Assembly. She also serves on the Boards of NAKASEC, the Competitive Commonwealth Fund, and Sister District Project.

Hands down, the people of VAPLP is what makes it such an amazing program. Irene, her fiancé, and dog live in the Town of Herndon. In her free time, Irene enjoys… wait what? Free time? What’s that? Fun fact, Irene learned to play the ukulele and bake sourdough during the pandemic.

Kalia Harris (she/ella) was born and raised in the Richmond area. During her academic career, Kalia has engaged in various youth organizing campaigns and organizations, including the Virginia Student Power Network (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.

Kalia currently works as the Executive Director of Virginia Student Power Network, supporting student organizing throughout Virginia and is currently involved with various community survival efforts including Richmond Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADRVA). Kalia is dedicated to the struggle of oppressed peoples across the Global South, to disrupting the myth of white supremacy, fighting for total liberation and ending the police and carceral state. In her free time, you can find her with her adorable Pomeranian puppies, Justice and Angel.

Kristin (she/her/We) resides on occupied Powhatan land in Richmond and graduated from The Great Pod 8 of VAPLP in 2022, followed by supporting as a contributing facilitator and mentor for the Divine Pod 9 in 2023. She is super excited to join the facilitation team again this summer.

Kristin serves as the Director of Engagement at Voices for Virginia’s Children – an advocacy organization that champions public policies and legislation that achieve positive and equitable outcomes for young people. At Voices, Kristin manages and supports Virginia’s Youth in Action, a yearly cohort of young advocates across the Commonwealth learning about Virginia state legislature, storytelling, and advocacy to evoke systems-level change at the Virginia General Assembly. 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.

Navdeep Singh (he/him) is the Executive Director of the Virginia Civic Engagement Table (VCET). 

He is dedicated to building community power using a cross-functional approach that combines advocacy, organizing, program strategy, and narrative design. His background organizing in and advocating for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Arab, Muslim, South Asian, Sikh American communities in the aftermath of acts of hate, violence, and discrimination profoundly shapes his approach to working with immigrant and marginalized communities at both the federal and state level, in the courts and in the halls of Congress.

He has over fifteen years of leadership in policy, campaign strategy, and organization building in national civil rights and non-profit organizations. He ran a social impact consulting firm, focused on designing programs and building community infrastructure to address emergent and systemic problems across diverse communities. He previously served as the Policy Director of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) and as the Policy Director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF). He was the co-chair of the Civil Rights Committee of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA).

He is a member of and held leadership roles in several community organizations and bar associations. He is co-chair of the NAPABA Civil Rights Committee and serves on the Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Committee. He served on the board of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania. He is a co-founder of the Sikh American History Project.

He was recognized as one of the Pennsylvania Legal Intelligencer’s Lawyers on the Fast Track,  the National Association of Asian Pacifics in Politics and Public Affairs (NAAPPPA) Best Under 40, and NAPABA’s Best Under 40. He graduated from the George Washington University Law School and the University of Virginia.

Nico currently resides on occupied Nacotchatnk land (Washington, DC), and joined VCET in January of 2022. As the Leadership Development Manager, they primarily support the Virginia Progressive Leadership Program. Passionate about social justice, collective liberation, and community solutions, Nico finds home in collective and visionary spaces woven together by queer and trans people. 

Nico learned some of their most important political lessons outside the classroom and was first politicized in high school by learning about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and their own Filipino and Puerto Rican diaspora. They cut their teeth as a young organizer & facilitator through student organizing and service at James Madison University; they are currently pursuing a Next Economy MBA with LIFT Economy.

As a facilitator, Nico draws on the teachings of Paulo Freire and bell hooks with a lens of popular education and experiential learning. They are invested in co-creating loving spaces and considers relationships & community to be the basis of their work. Nico’s biggest role models are Gizmo the gremlin, HIM from Powerpuff Girls, and the nerds from nerds candy.

Sameen (she/her) hails from the vibrant Punjab province of Pakistan, grew up in sunny Florida, and now calls DC home. She’s been stirring up good trouble since age four—advocating for justice, equality, and an extra helping of desserts. With a heart full of compassion and a mind constantly buzzing with ideas, Sameen’s mission is to leave the world better than she found it, all while keeping things light with a pun or two. Her quick wit and contagious smile can disarm even the most stubborn cynic, and her passion for social change fuels her every move.

Sameen brings a racial justice lens to her work as a fundraising expert, transforming leaders into powerful advocates for equity. She navigates the complexities of money and justice with finesse, knowing that in order to dismantle oppressive systems, we need to make sure that money speaks the language of justice and equality.

Excited by the opportunity to facilitate learning and growth, Sameen is passionate about creating collaborative spaces where people can move from awareness to action in advancing justice and equity.

When she’s not shaking up the world of justice, Sameen can be found glued to a good book, unraveling true crime mysteries, or snapping photos of the everyday moments that tell the best stories.