Get to Know This Year’s Courage Fellows

Peyton Arens became involved in gun violence prevention advocacy after attending the March For Our Lives in DC, and has since has been a chapter lead, state organizing director, and now a movement organizer with March For Our Lives.

Peyton has experience in both on-the-ground organizing as well as digital organizing, and is beyond excited to continue his work in gun violence prevention as a Courage Fellow. He believes America’s youth deserve a future free of gun violence, and has paid special attention to campaigns and bills aimed at mental health and commonsense reforms. He has also worked with his local school board and state board of education to keep guns out of schools, opposing a major resolution to arm school staff.

Beck Barrett has previously served as the communications director for a local chapter of March For Our Lives, and also founded a chapter at their high school. Beck believes that gun violence is a systemic issue that has taken and ruined too many lives, and that it is far past the time for change.

After witnessing gun violence impact people from all walks of life—but especially marginalized groups—Beck firmly believes in using their power and space to lift up the voices of others and advocate for change for those who can’t. They are also particularly interested in the intersection of disability and gun violence reform.

Ethan Gaskill is an activist and organizer from Mount Laurel, New Jersey. His first act of political engagement was encouraging his neighbors to vote in the 2008 election as a kindergartener, and he has been a passionate believer in the power of community organizing ever since.

Ethan is currently studying political science at American University and hopes to use the skills he gains as a Giffords Courage Fellow to help elect leaders who will take action and save lives through responsible gun safety legislation, while also preparing to pursue a career in the legal profession.

Rachel Hill is a current junior at the University of Colorado Boulder studying political science, math, and philosophy. She is from Littleton, Colorado, where she attended Columbine High School. She adores the Columbine community and became active in gun violence prevention nearly five years ago, when she was 16.

Since then, she has worked with Students Demand Action and March For Our Lives Colorado as the state coordinator, and has advocated for meaningful legislation at the state level, most notably for an extreme risk protection order. Since the Boulder King Soopers shooting, Rachel has turned her focus toward helping her community and enacting change at a local level.

Deepika Kannan is an 18-year-old activist from Orlando, Florida. She is very involved in providing free computer science education for girls in her community. She has organized several workshops, events, and panels for young girls in her area to learn about technology and meet women in the STEM field.

She became interested in gun violence prevention advocacy after a shooting occurred at her school. Building on her prior experience working with youth in her community, she wants to create mental health programs at public schools. She is a rising freshman at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she plans on studying international affairs and computer science.

Amina Khalique is a senior at Wayne State University and a lifelong Detroiter. She is majoring in political science with a concentration in public policy. Amina is currently a policy and research associate at We the People Michigan, director of policy for Detroit Period Project, and serves as a Wayne State student senator.

In high school, she became involved in community organizing and advocacy by organizing a student walkout against gun violence in 2018, as well as a March For Our Lives rally in Detroit the same year. At a young age, Amina became empowered and inspired by young leaders and activists to create change within her own community. Since then, she has committed to fighting for marginalized and underrepresented communities and advocating for social justice issues, including gun violence prevention.

Tiana Lockett is a grassroots organizer from Chicago, Illinois. She is a senior at Loyola Marymount University, where she is majoring in political science and double minoring in bioethics and philosophy. Since the age of 12, Tiana has been immersed in public service and has committed to raising awareness about her community’s most pressing issues.

After four consecutive community losses due to gun violence in 2016, Tiana vowed to prioritize gun violence prevention in her advocacy efforts. Through the Courage Fellowship, she aims to amplify the local message she has been organizing around for years on a national stage.

Faria Tavacoli was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is currently an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in public health. As an advocate for gender equality and social justice, Faria has been avid in her involvement with gun violence prevention and safety for BIPOC LGBTQIA+ youth in neighborhoods that offer inadequate resources and support.

Following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, she has been engaging and mobilizing youth across the community to support gun violence prevention legislation and policies. Faria vehemently believes that gun violence is a public health crisis that must be solved through inclusive research that considers a range of communities and people in connection to health policy.

Kaitlyn Tran is an 18-year-old advocate from St. Louis, Missouri, who is passionate about amplifying young voices. Kaitlyn first became involved in the gun violence prevention movement after writing a cover story for her school’s newspaper, in which she interviewed the families of St. Louis children who died in a string of gun violence in the summer of 2019.

Kaitlyn has worked heavily in local and national AAPI advocacy spaces, including spearheading a collaboration to aggregate and publish self-reported anti-Asian hate incident data, and she hopes to advocate for stronger gun violence prevention legislation around hate-motivated violence. Through Giffords, she is excited to learn from and advocate alongside her peers to support the safety and wellbeing of their communities.

Austen Wyche is a young activist from Madison, Alabama. He serves as the co-director of advocacy for the algorithmic justice-oriented organization Encode Justice, the founder of the Teen View blog, a member of the Institute of Youth in Policy, a former national director of Students Against Voter Suppression, and the president of his school’s Young Advocates for Equality.

Austen became involved in politics at a young age as an advocate for causes such as gun safety, LGBTQ+ equality, racial justice, and voting rights, and he worked on many local, state, and federal campaigns for candidates who uphold values and policies that protect Americans. Austen aims to learn more about the gun safety movement and how to protect residents all around the world from the dangers of gun violence.

Jett Young is a third-year political science and sociology double major at Miami University in Ohio. In high school, he organized a local March For Our Lives demonstration, and credits this experience as the catalyst for his educational and career aspirations.

Since this demonstration, he has realized that gun violence in America must be met with a strong multifaceted approach that addresses radicalization, racial animosity, and corporate interests. In college, Jett continues to be a gun violence prevention activist by volunteering for political candidates who support comprehensive gun safety laws. In the future, he hopes to work in the gun violence prevention and education nonprofit space.