Semduk Lama is from the village of Pugmo, where he, as the only local teacher took on his responsibility and taught. He himself had been lucky to meet a motivated teacher at a very young age who came to the village and trained the village youth (
Resh Bahadur Dakal from Sanja). After five years in the local school, he left the village on his own to continue school for SLC (School Leaving Certificate) in the district headquarters Dunai. To pay for accommodation and other costs, he worked over lunch time and during nights as a cook. Later, after finishing his SLC, he went back to his village, taught at the school and organized theater and other performances for the whole village. During such an occasion he met the social anthropologist Marietta Kind and a fruitful exchange began. While occasionally working as her research assistant, he he expressed his avid wish to build up a functioning school with Nepali, Tibetan and English lessons. An idea was born and later refined together with Marietta Kind, Geshe Wangyal and Catherine Inman. In 1998 the Tapriza School was founded. Later Semduk Lama completed IA and various further education programs.
