Ari Pero

Ari is passionately committed to making an impact on those around them through their engagement in the political happenings of their community. They co-founded Students Demand Action, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to ending gun violence. Since their formation in February 2018, Ari has been directly influencing national legislation. They have organized marches, meetings, and educational community events; spoken at leadership summits; and volunteered for gun sense candidates.

This fall, Ari sought to pay forward everything they’d learned within the Active Community Engagement (ACE) FPOP last year and throughout all their years of advocacy work as an ACE Counselor. After dozens of meetings throughout the Spring and Summer in preparation, they kicked off the semester by facilitating their own workshops on criminal justice and housing reform and introducing a new class of freshmen to MIT through service placements with local volunteer organizations.

This inspiring work encompasses the same idea Ari has embodied since first engaging in activism: that of empowering other students to recognize their political power and equipping them with the resources they need to effect real change. To quote them, “It is exceedingly vital that we who have already found ourselves civically engaged utilize our knowledge and platforms to make issue advocacy accessible to everyone—especially to those who do not believe that their voices carry any real weight. I am grateful to be able to pass down those opportunities which I found so valuable yet did not always have access to in order to continue this critical cycle of growth, empowerment, and action.”

Ari was recently selected as one of three ACE Coordinators for the coming year.

Ari has also been anchoring their experiences at MIT in their desire to work in the field of intersectional criminal justice reform: joining the MIT Prison Initiative; leading a research project on discriminatory housing policies in the U.S.; and volunteering for Black & Pink Massachusetts, an organization they were first introduced to as an ACE participant.