GOBANG, INDONESIA — Astuti Kusumaningrum was working a desk job for a children’s foundation when she received an e-mail about a program sending young teachers to remote Indonesian villages for a year. As a trained psychologist, she had no background in education, but the program piqued her interest.

“I like interacting with children, and I like to listen to them and talk to them, and I think I’m good at that,” said the 23-year-old from the city of Yogyakarta, who enrolled in the program, Indonesia Mengajar, and has lived in Gobang in western Java, since June.

Started in 2009 by the rector of a private university in Jakarta, with sponsors like Intel, Indika Energy and the consulting firm McKinsey, Indonesia Mengajar recruits and trains young Indonesians to work as teachers in remote, impoverished provinces.

Its goal is to fill a shortfall in the number of qualified teachers in the country of 248 million people, a sprawling archipelago populated by people with hundreds of different languages and ethnicities. The program also aims to shape a new generation of leaders who understand the needs of rural communities.