Habitat for Humanity has partnered with Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world's largest paper producers, to bring a struggling village in Indonesia out of poverty in an unusual way: by making it into an eco-tourism destination where visitors can stay with families.

This controversial conversion will take place in Soran, a village where 60 percent of the resident families live below the poverty line, despite their long traditions of creating crafts and music, and their location near to one of Indonesia's most precious attractions, Prambanan Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Central Java region.

The Soran project will improve living quarters for most families by adding guest accommodations, expanding kitchens for the preparation of guest meals, earthquake proofing and adding laundry facilities. Furthermore, the project will train-to-employ over 250 villagers as laundry management workers (50), cooks of traditional foods (100) and performers and marketers of the village's traditional arts (100 families). Over 100 villagers will also be trained in "disaster risk mitigation."

You can watch Habitat for Humanity coordinator Johannes Sigit P. talk about this first-of-its-kind for HfH project in the video above. What do you think?

Filed under: Indonesia, Video, Ecotourism, News