Franke Honors Student Collaborates with Pascua Yaqui Tribe to Create Workshops for Local Youth

Esha Mathur is a junior at the W.A. Franke Honors College majoring in Biology with an emphasis in Biomedical Sciences, and minoring in Pharmaceutical Sciences. She is passionate about service and health care in the community, and hopes to blend these interests as she works toward becoming a physician in the future. 

Involved in a variety of programs throughout the W.A. Franke Honors College and the Tucson community, Esha is particularly excited about a new collaboration that she has established with the Pascua Yaqui tribe, volunteering with middle school and high school students and establishing workshops that provide students with learning opportunities centered around Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Arts (STEAM).

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Can you tell us about your involvement with the Pascua Yaqui tribe?

I first connected with the Pascua Yaqui tribe in 2022. Since then, we have held monthly science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) inspired workshops designed for elementary, middle, and high school students. The goal of these workshops is to introduce the STEAM fields to students in a fun, low stress environment. For example, we held a microscope workshop last year. Many of the students had never used a microscope before. In this workshop students were able to entertain their own curiosities. They looked at plant and animal matter, and even made their own slides with whatever material they were curious about.

How did you get started volunteering with the community in this way?

The Pascua Yaqui tribe were looking for tutors to help some of their students. I had started a not-for-profit tutoring service in high school, so I felt we could collaborate on leveraging my tutoring service to help find the proper tutors for their students. However, as we got to talking, our conversation leaned another way. Together as a team we wanted to create beneficial educational workshops that would pull students away from their phones. Most of the students are dropped off by their parents while they are at work, and the library staff noticed that students would just spend time playing games on the library computers, which is why they wanted us to implement educational workshops. It took months of meetings and planning, but I am very excited these monthly workshops have been established. It is so rewarding to see students excited to come and learn. We now have a large group of “regulars” that come almost monthly, and high school students can even get credit for attending these workshops.

Why is it important to you to be involved in community service work?

 I am a triplet, so growing up, I always had some form of support. For example, if I ever got sick and missed a few days of school, my two siblings were there to help me catch up. I am so lucky to have this support. I wanted to extend that type of support to other students. That is why in high school, I started a peer-to-peer tutoring service for students. Although it was difficult creating a website, speaking to school administrators, and amassing a pool of willing tutors, it was so rewarding to be able to help students struggling with their classes. In my opinion, when it comes to community service, if you have the passion to uplift members of your community, you most definitely should do it. You have the opportunity to help so many people, and it is incredibly self-gratifying.

What are you interested in doing in the future after Franke Honors?

In the future, I plan to pursue a career in medicine. My time working with the many diverse and often underserved communities in Tucson has heightened my awareness of and made me more culturally competent. As a physician, I will use my new skills to continue to serve these communities to the best of my ability.

What has been your favorite course/professor in the W.A. Franke Honors College?

I personally enjoyed my Honors English class (ENGL 109H). It was not a typical English class. Instead, my professor, Dr. Clifford, wanted us to pick a community organization in Tucson to analyze and I chose to look into the Thornhill Lopez Center (SAAF). Its purpose is to provide a safe space for LGBTQ+ youth, and offers a variety of supportive programs to help youth in all facets of their lives. Without this class, I would have never known about the amazing work the Thornhill Lopez Center is doing for a very marginalized and underserved population in our community. Also, because ENGL 109H put such a heavy emphasis on collaboration, I learned about the organizations my peers were researching. Overall, it was an incredibly eye-opening class that inspired me to become a community leader as well.

What other Franke Honors, UArizona or community programs are you involved in?

For the last three years, I have been working with Dr. Julie Armin’s disability lab under the University of Arizona’s Undergraduate Biology Research Program (UBRP). My research centers around health care access for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities. I felt very inspired by my research, so I worked privately as a behavior technician for autistic children for a year. Now, I am a student under the University of Arizona’s Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities Certificate Program. As a “certificate student”, I have opportunities to work with individuals with disabilities in community settings. On campus, I am a part of a pre-medical honors society called Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED). As an active member of AED, I participate in philanthropic events, and improve my own professional development skills. We also meet with physicians from multiple fields. I even invited a physician I shadow to come speak to my fellow AED members.

What do you like to do for fun or in your spare time?

In my spare time, I love exploring Tucson’s hiking trails. I am a big fan of Tanque Verde Falls because there are often pools of water deep enough to swim in! I also really love making jewelry. It is an easy and fun way to relax, and you get a brand new pair of earrings out of it!

Are there opportunities for more Franke Honors students to volunteer with the Pascua Yaqui? How can they get involved?

Absolutely! It would be great to have extra volunteers to help run these workshops with me! The library where these workshops are conducted is about 45 minutes away from campus at the Dr. Fernando Escalante Tribal Library. I am really excited to get the word out about this super exciting collaboration with the Pascua Yaqui tribe! It took a lot of planning, so I am so happy these workshops have been a success. If a student is interested in volunteering, they can send an email to my not-for-profit organization, admin@p2ptutoring.org

Learn more about Ehsa's Peer 2 Peer workshops by visiting https://www.p2ptutoring.org/