Aliento Features: Saul Rascón

We would like to introduce our new segment “Aliento Features”. We will be featuring amazing individuals of the community who have worked with us here at Aliento!

For our first Aliento Feature, we would like to introduce you to Saul Rascón! Saul is a DACA recipient and a graduating Senior at Brophy College Preparatory. He is also part of our inaugural fellowship program here at Aliento! We first met Saul back in Dec. 2017 while we were running our Vote4Dream campaign in Washington DC. Saul, along with his friends, took a week off from school (a week before finals) to join us in DC to advocate for not only himself, but for his community as well.

At Brophy, Saul was part of the Advocacy Club, which consists of students from Brophy and Xavier College Prep. The Advocacy Club created the Dream On Campaign at Brophy, which educated allies on how to be better advocates for their DACAmented classmates.

"Having education is a human right, and although it is not being directly taken from us, it most definitely is in a very subtle and indirect way, through this opportunity I want to give my all towards this battle for the furthering of education for my fellow classmates."

In August 2018, he became one of the five Fellows at Aliento. He would lead on the Arizona’s Future campaign, an awareness campaign for tuition equity for all Arizona high school graduates regardless of immigration status.

As a fellow, he organized with his peers at the Advocacy Club to become leaders of the Arizona’s Future campaign. As a result, Brophy became one of the strongest supporters and partners for tuition equity!

The whole ‘Leadership Development’ aspect of the fellowship [at Aliento] has really been the clearest, most tangible skill I’ve taken from this experience. I’ve learned how to become a better leader in ways that I know will impact future academic and professional opportunities in life.

On January 23rd. Saul, along with the collective efforts of the fellows and Advocacy Club, turned out more than 250 students, educators and allies at the Arizona Capitol for Education Day. 250 students from schools across the valley came to the capitol to speak with both Democrats and Republicans about the importance of tuition equity! A couple days later, Republican Senator Heather Carter would introduce Senate Bill 1217- A bill that would offer a lower tuition rate for all Arizona high school graduates regardless of immigration status.

All of this wouldn’t have happened without the courage, determination and leadership of Saul and the rest of the fellows, together they’ve created leaders within their own schools.

Without a lot of investment, there is no growth in any internships, fellowship, job, etc. The Fellowship requires genuine passion and interest in the subject. Without a doubt, I recommend this fellowship with Aliento as it has been one of the highlights of my high school career!

Saul will be graduating from Brophy this May! He will be interning with a law firm during the Summer in Phoenix. Then he will be heading to Los Angeles where he will be attending Loyola Marymount University!

Saul is part of the fellowship program here at Aliento! We provide leadership development, organizing trainings, and provide the tools for our fellows to become leaders in their communities. In order to fund a fellow, it takes about $4000. Please donate to Aliento so we can fund our next cohort of young leaders in Arizona!