The Oprah Effect

It has been the beginning of a pretty spectacular ride at Laga.

Malaak Compton-Rock gave us the opportunity of a lifetime by recommending that our Laga bags be featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show as an example of what her book, "If It Takes A Village, Build One," was written about.



As I wrote in my previous entry, Malaak (which means "angel" in Aramaic) has lived a life of service, learned from and taught to her by her mother, Gayle Fleming (read an exerpt here from her book where she mentions her mom).



And thanks to her, service has been Malaak's passion in life and she has now expressed it in her new book. And Laga fit well into the show aired on Oprah Tuesday, April 13th which featured Mary J. Blige and Malaak herself, both of whom shared their stories and how they are making a difference in the lives of others.



Malaak introduced our amazing Laga handbags on that show, using them as a product on which people can simply exercise their consumer power to help others, in our case, those affected by the 2004 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia.



Since the show aired, orders have been coming in and they haven't stopped yet. Although our portion of the show represented a mere 10 seconds of the entire program, Malaak was able to give a concise and eloquent rundown of what Laga handbags is all about.

And since airing on Oprah, we have had opportunity for more coverage through other media, including a Salem, Oregon-based radio station KXL/KEX interview with reporter Gina Parosa, and yet another article in the Business section of the Orange County Register, written by Jan Norman. Jan will be doing another feature story on Laga which will be out soon. And the OC Register has been so kind in featuring Laga in other articles in the past.

Although I am out on the road for a couple of shows, the rest of our team is hard at work at home, fielding calls and filling orders. We have been blessed.

We started Laga four years ago with 12 women in our small factory in Aceh and blessed to be able to take that number to 300. And we are excited about the prospects of being able to provide long-term sustainable income for many, many more. With the help of the Oprah airing, we are confident we will make big strides in accomplishing that in 2010!