Teacher LaMont to spend year in Nepal

Sisters Elementary School Physical Education teacher Mark LaMont will be packing his bags for a year when he goes to Nepal this summer. LaMont and Sisters High School teacher Rand Runco traditionally spend about a month there each summer, accompanied by area volunteers.

This year LaMont is extending his stay throughout the 2007-08 school year.

LaMont's request for a year's leave of absence was approved by Sisters school board members at their meeting on Monday, April 23.

"I feel very, very, very fortunate to have the opportunity to do that...," said LaMont. "The opportunities for helping people there are just everywhere you look."

He will install as many water filters in orphanages as possible and also hopes to provide bunk beds and mattresses with the goal of getting "as many kids off the concrete floors as I can."

LaMont's efforts will extend to building bathrooms in communities and orphanages that have no bathrooms.

"Just to paint the picture, people obviously still need to go to the bathroom even when they don't have one and, as anyone would, go where they can. It's a mess and very unsanitary," he said.

Providing school sponsorships will also be a focus of LaMont's year. It costs $200 to send a child to school each year.

"Two hundred dollars is half of the average (yearly) Nepalese income. There are a lot of children who don't go to school because they can't afford it or because their income is needed in their family," said LaMont.

LaMont and Runco are the co-founders of Ten Friends, a not-for-profit organization that is concerned about the human impact of economic hardship throughout the world (see related story, page 31).

In providing school sponsorships, Ten Friends looks for children who are between four and six years old.

"If a child is 10 or 11 years old, they can't really integrate them into the schools because they don't know how to sharpen a pencil and they can't write," said LaMont.

Dinesh Khakurel, a native of Nepal and one of Ten Friends' two employees there, finds students whose situations are conducive to attending school. Most come from orphanages.

"Dinesh networks and contacts friends and knows the directors of dozens of orphanages. He can find kids pretty immediately," LaMont said.

After finding the children, Khakurel takes them to the schools and enrolls them.

Through Khakurel's hands-on efforts Ten Friends is able to meet the requirements of individual donor's requests.

Khakurel is currently laying the ground work for the larger scale projects LaMont hopes to complete during his year's stay. Khakurel is looking into the possibility of Ten Friends building a school and a library in his own village.

"I can't say for sure that's what I'm going to do, but that is what I want to do," LaMont said.

LaMont told The Nugget that underlying all of Ten Friends work is making certain that nothing is done to attempt to change the culture of the Nepalese people.

Ten Friends wants to "give them the tools that they need to have some hope and to get education or to live their dreams within their own culture. Ten Friends is not interested in building dams or doing anything the Nepalese people don't need or want. We don't want to 'Americanize' them in any way," LaMont said.

A fund-raiser to support Ten Friends projects in Nepal is taking place between 1 and 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, at Sisters Elementary School. Participating students will walk or run for one hour to promote school spirit and encourage service to others. Family and friends are encouraged to make sponsorship contributions to participating students.

On Saturday, May 5, a "Kids Helping Kids Yard Sale" will be held in the elementary school's gym, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. All proceeds will be donated to Ten Friends projects in Nepal.

For more information visit http://www.tenfriends.org.