A new program is being launched in rural eastern Kentucky that will put computers and Internet access into the homes of up to 300 poverty-level families within the next three years, Wired magazines reports.

The Home Access to the Internet and Learning (HAIL) program isn't simply a hand-out, however. Once they complete computer skills training, HAIL organizers will require participating families to contribute stories, photographs, drawing and/or videos about their day-to-day lives in Appalachia.

The program, if successful, will simultaneously bring people in some nation's the poorest counties into the digital age, while also preserving a disappearing lifestyle centered on farming and the outdoors.

The HAIL program is the brainchild of Ray Zavada, president of the Louisville-based Innovative Productivity Inc., a nonprofit that recycles computers and uses the machines to teach people basic tech skills.

The new program will start in Clay and Jackson counties -- which have average annual household incomes of $13,000 -- and be offered through middle school science programs. Parents and other adults at home can also take classes through the innovative Kentucky Virtual High School or the Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual University.

Since so many families depend on hunting, fishing and farming, the second phase of the program -- to document participants' everyday life -- will be coordinated with the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources.

"If we can find something that's interesting and entertaining (to them), we can teach them technology in that context. You first have to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy in order for these Kentuckians to have a chance to succeed," Robert Clark, a project leader, told Wired.

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