Sisters teacher is off to Nepal

Rand Runco, teacher and basketball coach at Sisters High School, will take a sabbatical next winter to train and place teachers in Nepal.

Runco and Mark LaMont, also a teacher in Sisters, organized a nonprofit assistance program called Ten Friends following a summer trip to Nepal with eight friends in 2004. Since that time, according to their Web-site, hundreds have been involved in the work, delivering stretchers and water filters, community sanitation, assistance to orphanages and education (http://tenfriends.org/).

(Ten Friends is hosting their annual fundraiser at Aspen Hall at Shevlin Park in Bend at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, May 23, 2008; $40 for adults, children 10 and under free, featuring Nepali food, music, silent auction and more.)

In addition to those projects, next winter Runco hopes to raise funds to create a new village school for a recently graduated Nepalese teacher to teach in. Runco said that village parents often send their children to school in cities. Frequently, these children end up in orphanages.

"We know there are over 400 orphanages in Katmandu, a city smaller than Portland," Runco said. Some reports are that there may actually be over 1,000 orphanages.

Ten Friends believes that rather than send children from villages to the city, a better solution is to bring schools to the villages. The children will be able to live at home, where there is a network of community support. Ten Friends is working with another non-governmental organization (NGO), Educate The Children International, in this effort.

In addition to keeping children out of orphanages and at home, there is an additional benefit to Nepalese women. There are 13 girls attending a teacher training school who will hopefully be returning to villages to teach.

"Of 900 schools, there is one female teacher. So if this works, it will be a real statement," Runco said.

Lamont is currently on a one-year leave from teaching and spent more than five months in Nepal.

Runco has been head coach of the Sisters High School basketball team since the 1997-98 season. He has been a teacher in Sisters since graduating from college and getting his teaching certificate.

"This is a tough part for me ... Going (to Nepal) is a dream, but leaving teaching, missing a term of school - and a big part is the coaching - that is something (that is difficult)."

Runco teaches Interdisciplinary Environmental Expedition (IEE) and Physical Education, in addition to being basketball coach.

The Sisters School Board granted him leave at their meeting on May 6.

It is still undecided who will fill his teaching duties and who will coach basketball. Runco will leave for Nepal this summer, with four Sisters students and school nurse Sally Benton.