2025 UPDATE
Right now, RIOT RI is working to reboot our programming with a very active working Board and dedicated volunteers. If you’d like to get involved, email kaileigh.ahlquist@riotri.org. To find out what’s coming up next, follow us on Instagram!
MISSION
RIOT RI is a volunteer-based non-profit that uses music creation, critical thinking and collaborative relationships to foster collective empowerment and the development of healthy identities in girls, women, trans, and gender-expansive youth and adults.
VISION
We start from a basis of mutual respect. We envision a world in which our identities are assets, not limitations, and where we are able to actively claim and develop our own strengths and expertise to create a world of our own design.
VALUES
Music as a Force for Change
We focus on music’s ability to mobilize, unify, and invigorate people to create social change. Music is a powerful tool that connects individual expression to collective thoughts, emotions, and actions. Creating music within a band requires not only collaboration, respect, and support, but also individual effort, skill building, and expression. Our goal is to use music’s unifying force to empower individuals and communities to band together and create positive change for themselves and for society as a whole.
Respect and Communication
We start from a basis of mutual respect. Each individual’s unique qualities and perspectives are valuable and shape our community. We also recognize that our experiences and perspectives may differ and we believe that open dialogue and direct communication can lead us to common ground and deeper collaboration and a stronger community.
Analyzing Power
We encourage critical analysis of intersecting systems of oppression, particularly when manifested in media, popular culture and our day to day lives. Creating this dialogue provides us with the tools we need to take positive action against these systems.
Fighting Gender-Based Oppression
We support cis and trans women and girls, non binary and gender non-conforming individuals. We also explicitly support trans men and transmasculine individuals. We reject a culture that values individuals for their appearance and sexuality rather than their character, we all need support to create a strong sense of identity and self. We are committed to expanding traditional conceptions of and conversations about gender.
Collaboration
We believe in a do-it-yourself spirit that empowers individuals to act and create on their own and we also recognize that we are stronger together. A collective process of creation and self-expression develops individual and community resilience. We share skills and learn from each other in a supportive environment in which experimentation, critical engagement, and feedback are valued.
Learning and Leading
We encourage learning and leadership at all levels: program participants, volunteers, board and staff. We strive to listen to each other openly and actively to make intentional decisions together.
Staff & Board
BOARD
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Lipou Laliemthavisay, Co Chair
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Kaileigh Ahlquist, Co Chair
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Emily Timm
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Rainy Stanford-Cordaro
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Rachel Sholly
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Ashley Anderson
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Santiago DosSantos
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Tatiana Dossantos
Lipou Laliemthavisay
Lipou [lee-pu, she/her/hers] was born and raised in Providence, RI. While growing up, she always thought she would be an ambassador and allow all visa applications that came in. However, life took a different path. Coming from an immigrant family, she had a deep desire to work with and for marginalized communities, which then grew into a passion for indigent defense. Aside from being a public defender, she is a proud parent of two pitbulls, Kenya & Penny, and teaches criminal law & procedure part-time. She loves going on walks/hikes with the dogs and listening to music to de-stress. She is glad she was invited to join the Board in December 2018, though regretful she did not join the organization sooner. She recently took virtual drum classes at RIOT and loved bangin’ out Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade!
Kaileigh Ahlquist
Kaileigh (they/them/theirs) is a long time Providence-area troublemaker. Kaileigh is passionate about science, art and making the world awesome for everyone, especially trans people. They first participated in RIOT adult Rock camp in 2018. Since then they have been a program participant, fundraiser and volunteer, finally joining the Board in 2024. Kaileigh is part of the band Medium in Mens, formed through a RIOT connection in 2021.
Emily Timm
Emily (she/they) joined the RIOT RI Board in 2025 and currently serves as the Vice Chair. She is a musician with over a decade of experience in the DIY music scene, including touring nationally and in Europe, co-founding an all-ages venue, and currently performing with her slacker punk band, Sun Urchins. Beyond music, she has a background in communications for mission-driven organizations with graphic design and project management expertise.
Rainy Stanford-Cordaro
Rainy Stanford-Cordaro (she/her) began working with RIOT in early 2025 as a drum instructor and band coach. Soon after that she joined the Board and became Secretary, helping keep things on task and on track. A lifelong percussionist, Rainy also plays bass guitar and a number of woodwinds, most of which are big clarinets. She works at an arts nonprofit in Providence and is a member of Extraordinary Rendition Band (ERB). Rainy moved to Rhode Island in 2024 but is originally from Massachusetts, where she was previously involved with Boston Raising Powerful Musicians for a number of years. She apologizes in advance for her pronunciation of Pawtucket.
Rachel Sholly
Rachel Sholly (she/her) has been part of the RIOT community since 2010, when she attended one of RIOT’s first Adult Rock Camps – a life-changing experience that gave her the confidence to start drumming – and she’s been playing in bands ever since. Over the years, she’s served RIOT as a board member, staff member, drum instructor, band coach, event planner, and general chaos coordinator. Rachel has been active in the Providence music scene since 2004 and is passionate about supporting local, grassroots spaces where music becomes a tool for identity exploration, creative empowerment, and community building. Also known as Red Dawn, she’s been DJing an eclectic mix of genres since 2014. In her professional life, she works as an independent consultant in energy efficiency and climate education and engagement. She loves travel, yoga, and new experiences of all kinds.
Ashley Anderson
Ashley Anderson (she/her) first began volunteering with RIOT in 2014 as a bass instructor and band coach, eventually taking on the role of gear coordinator. After stepping away to focus on her family, music, and career, she rejoined RIOT in 2025 as co-treasurer on the board of directors.
A lifelong multi-instrumentalist, Ashley has been playing music since age 7 and spent her college years volunteering at an all-ages music venue in Tucson, AZ. She currently plays guitar in the Providence-based stoner punk band Sullest and bass in the 80s hardcore band Tomb Envy.
Professionally, Ashley works as a resource manager in the creative industry, where she supports design teams by aligning people, skills, and projects. When she’s not working, playing music, or volunteering, Ashley enjoys spending time in the garden with her husband and their three pups, reading trashy horror novels, and baking tasty vegan treats.
Santiago Navarro
Bio coming soon!
Tatiana DosSantos
Bio coming soon!
Name Change
WHY OUR NAME CHANGED
In its mission, Girls Rock! Rhode Island, or GRR! (as RIOT RI was named at its founding) made a commitment to help foster the development of healthy identities of girls, women, trans and gender expansive individuals. By 2020, our Board, staff, and community recognized that the very name under which the organization functioned was no longer empowering to our LGBTQ participants, staff, and volunteers.
When the name of GRR! was originally imagined in 2009, the word “Girl” carried very different connotations than it does today. At the time the organization was formed, the Riot Grrl movement of the 1990s and early ‘00s still carried weight in the cultural zeitgeist as a symbol of inclusive, underground feminism in the music scene. As language evolved and expanded over the following decade, that word “Girl” as it appeared in our name came to mean something very different.
WHY WE MADE THE CHANGE WHEN WE DID
By 2019-2020, our organization began to focus on internal anti-oppression practices. With support from the Equity Action Fund, we created the opportunity to make profound and sustaining change to the organization.
Based on data from 2018, 40% of our volunteer base at that time identified as LGBTQ. 16% of our middle school participants and 23% of our high school participants identified as LGBTQ as well. According to PEW Research Center data, the median age for LGBT individuals to come out is 20 years old, so we could safely predict this number to be underreported. The YRBS reported that 8% of high school age youth identify as LGBTQ; that number was nearly tripled in attendees of our 2018 high school camp. With this in mind, we had and have a responsibility to be a leader in organizational inclusivity.
2019-2020 was a year of transition, during which we brought on new leadership, moved into a new space, and even created some new programs. It’s important to know, however, that our name change was in the works well before it became publicly visible. For years we were saying “We’re not just for girls, and we don’t just play rock!” We recognized that, if we had to specify that every time we said it, something wasn’t working.
HOW WE CHOSE IT
Conversations around changing the name had been circulating for many years, but the process officially started in January 2019, when the organization began to seek funding to support the switch. The organization was granted support by the Equity Action Fund, which allowed the organization, fittingly, to take action towards organizational equity.
In April 2019, we began a strategic planning process which highlighted the importance of inclusivity and accessibility as a main pillar. The strategic planning process continued into early 2020, and informed decision making about the new name.
In September 2019, the organization released a community survey, gathering information about what the new name should include in order to reflect its current participants and stakeholders.
With the survey results as the north star, the Board of Directors began brainstorming names. In November of that year, the organization passed all of the information it had garnered to the youth advisory board. The youth were asked to make a final decision about the new name, guided by the community survey, and Board guidelines. The youth chose a name by December 29th, 2019, and it was officially released to the public on December 31, 2019.
In December 2019, the organization also chose to hire a new logo designer to reflect the new name. After reviewing the work of hundreds of illustrations, the organization elected to hire Melita Tirado to design the new brand.
From January to April, the organization has worked with Mx. Tirado to finalize the logo, branding, and assets. The official name and logo, along with the new website and social media handles were released on March 30, 2020.
WHAT IT MEANS
RIOT RI stands for Revolution in our Times Rhode Island. By keeping the word RIOT in the name, the organization nods to the roots of Girls Rock! Rhode Island, which was grown from the Riot Grrl movement. The full name nods to the social justice oriented mission of the organization, and the organization’s commitment to challenge power structures along with empowering individuals.
Quotes From Our Youth
“The organization is part of a bigger community. It’s like when a friend comes out and you have to use new pronouns, at first it can be difficult but you just have to keep doing it and it [becomes] normal cause you care about them”
“It’s a positive thing, this is still a space for everyone and now it’s broader space where everyone can feel comfortable, even if you don’t feel comfortable with the label of girl.”
“I love it, one summer my mom signed up for camp and I didn’t wanna go because I don’t want to be identified as a girl, so the name change made me feel really happy.”
“This organization isn’t to single out just girls but all folks who have not been supported in the music industry… that goes far beyond girls.”