When our partnership with Nepali forest product enterprises began in 2002, our focus was simple: create economic opportunities in impoverished communities dedicated to biodiversity conservation.

Five years later, our partnership with the Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Biodiversity (ANSAB) helps guide the Malika Handmade Paper Enterprise in northern Nepal. Thousands of acres of eco-sensitive Himalayan forest have been spared.

But ask Aveda team members (numbers of us have made the miles-high trek) about their Nepal experience, and the response is unequivocal: the spirit of the Nepali people grips your soul. Govinda Kami of Kailash village is one example.

Govinda's family is one of 42 local families of the untouchable caste "Kami."
Custom prohibits them from drinking water from the same well as other castes, or entering certain homes. Poverty is self-perpetuating. In 2003, at age 25, Govinda was at the mercy of lenders charging over 60 percent interest on loans. He owed the equivalent of $2,300 American dollars.

Then the paper enterprise was adopted by the village. Govinda became a project employee. His leadership qualities emerged quickly, and he gained confidence to enroll in language and management courses-requiring he travel on foot great distances to reach school.

Today, Govinda is a shareholder and board member of the paper collaborative. He has paid off his debt, built a house, and married. He is chairperson of the school committee in the village, where his 3-year-old son Aabiskar soon will attend. "The paper project has taught me success factors for community development," he says. "The confidence raised by the project is very important for people like me which are from untouchable caste."

Other Kami villagers are taking his lead. Co-op farmers now sell potatoes to villagers who once would not buy from untouchables. And so a richer social and economic network is born.