From Disaster Comes Opportunity

The van Broekhuizen’s handbag business offers economic opportunity for Indonesian tsunami victims.

Laga Designs International, Inc., is a business with a mission. When Roy van Broekhuizen went to Indonesia as a relief coordinator after the 2004 tsunami, he saw scene after scene of total devastation-homes wiped out, schools and businesses flattened, and families fractured. But it was the survivors who affected him the most. “You would see them sitting on the floor, just traumatized. They had lost everyone and everything,” van Broekhuizen says.

When van Broekhuizen’s contract with his church’s relief service ended in February 2006, he and his wife, Louise, vowed that they would do anything they could to help the survivors of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and the local economy. They found their solution in the one-of-a-kind embroidered handbags that Louise had purchased in the village. Encouraged by the interest that Louise’s bags were generating in their hometown of Santa Ana, California, the van Broekhuizens held a party at their condo and sold $2,000 worth of bags.

Soon, the van Broekhuizens were receiving via airmail up to 11 boxes of handbags at a cost of $250 per box. The couple brought in their first 40-foot shipping container of bags in August 2007. They have on hand as many as 6,000 handbags and 33 consultants to sell the bags through home parties. Laga handbags are also sold in area boutiques, at booths at accessories trade shows, and on e-retailer eBags.com. “We’re showing people something they’ve never seen before,” says Roy. “Each handbag is a piece of art.”

One hundred percent of Laga Designs’ profits go back into the business, including renting production facilities overseas and paying wages for 150 tsunami survivors in Banda Aceh. Laga Designs’ products, which also include belts, wallets, and travel duffels, incorporate native patterns passed down from generation to generation. Even the name of the van Broekhuizen’s company is indigenous–Laga is a variation of the Acehnese word for beautiful–and each product line is given an Acehnese word.

The van Broekhuizens are trying to balance their explosive growth with their current inventory. “We don’t know what’s going to sell, so we have to juggle all the different styles, colors, and sizes,” Roy explains. With a supplier half a world away, filling orders quickly can present challenges. For example, with eBags, the couple has to ship an order within 48 hours. “We’re trying to get warehouse space. We can’t work out of our garage anymore.”
The growing pains are worth it, according to Roy. “To see those women now, how they are so empowered–it gives us all hope. We do our little part to help people, and it makes us realize how lucky we are.”

Originally published June 2008. Reprinted by permission, uschamber.com, June 2008. Copyright©2008, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

June 4th, 2008, 9:30 am · Post a Comment · posted by Hang Nguyen

An Irvine company’s handbags may land in the Smithsonian Christmas and/or jewelry catalogs.

Laga Designs International’s five purses and a wallet have passed a pre-selection stage for the catalogs, said Danette Nguyen, assistant buyer for the Smithsonian catalogs.

The products in the Smithsonian catalogs are picked because they relate in some way to its museums’ collections. That allows it to keep its non-profit status.

The Laga bags will relate to the Asian ethological collection at the National Museum of Natural History. The collection comprises of 30,000 objects from Southeast Asia, Nguyen said.

The Laga bags are handmade by more than 150 tsunami victims in Aceh, the Indonesian province that was destroyed by the earthquake and subsequent tidal waves on Dec. 26, 2004.

The nearly three-year-old Laga business allows founder Roy Van Broekhuizen, pictured above, to reconnect with his childhood. His family, part Dutch and part Indonesian, fled Indonesia when he was 9.

A Smithsonsian buyer came across the Laga handbags at a trade show in Las Vegas.

The institution plans to sell these pieces from $30 to $140, slightly higher than what they go for on Laga’s Web site. The Harapan “Hope” purse, pictured right, which Laga retails from $130 to $190, is one of the bags Smithsonian is considering.

The local company will find out in about two to three weeks whether it made the final cut for the Smithsonsian catalogs that arrive in homes in October, Nguyen said.

(Register photo of Van Broekhuizen and his wife Louise with their bags. Other photo from Laga Web site.)