Efren Oxlaj Tambito Receives an Honorable Mention
Efren Oxlaj Tambito ’19, was awarded an honorable mention from the Udall Scholarship committee, also a high honor. Born in Guatemala, Oxlaj Tambito is one of Santa Clara’s first-generation-college LEAD Scholars. For two summers, he helped his community become more sustainable by working for the California Youth Energy Services (CYES) under an environmental and youth development non-profit called Rising Sun Energy Center.
After working two summers for the California Youth Energy Services for 40 hours a week, as an Energy Specialist and as a Summer Site Manager, he has helped 600 homes in his community become more energy and water efficient. For the past two years, Efren has been working as a research assistant working on social justice issues for several Santa Clara professors. This coming summer he will be going Uganda for 7 weeks as a Global Social Benefit Fellow with the Miller Center. He will use his experience of living in a farming community in Guatemala, his knowledge of environmental science and economics to conduct research to analyze the impact of a social enterprise called NUCAFE (National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises).
(James Wang, left and Efren Oxlaj Tambito, right)