How fake purses funded $500,000 for charity

MANILA, Philippines - It takes a battery of lawyers to raise a village.

Louis Vuitton held a brunch to announce a substantial donation to SOS Children’s Villages, a “private, non-denominational organization that provides long-term care and education to children in need.”

The charity, founded by Dr. Hermann Gmeiner, a soldier who found himself appalled by the conditions of children made homeless and orphaned by World War II, maintains the essential principle that all children deserve a home.

At SOS Children’s Villages, which sprouted subsidiaries in China, Vietnam, Dominican Republic and the Philippines, children are offered homes with a supportive parental figure, and provided an education to boost their future prospects.

How counterfeit LV purses support a children’s village

In 2009, Louis Vuitton kicked off 9,489 raids worldwide, instigating over 20,000 anti-counterfeiting procedures to seize fake merchandise and crush the networks circumventing intellectual property laws. Over 400 websites hawking knockoffs were shut down.

The French label’s strategy of targeting intermediaries, middlemen institutions with a vested interest in the procurement and production of imitations, have been successful in directing the company’s efforts at limiting the access to illegal goods.

A 2009 case set in San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley, earned the company a little over $32.4 million in damages against the companies responsible for the servers hosting over 200 sites dealing in knockoffs.

With LV’s coffers lined with over half a million dollars directed towards charitable institutions, the label entered a five-year partnership with SOS Children’s Village.

“Through our relationship with SOS Children’s Villages, we seek to support children their education and creative development,” says LV CEO and chairman Yves Carcelle. “Preserving our past and preparing the new generations for a better future is one of the founding values which have inspired the Maison Louis Vuitton for over 150 years. We believe that education is the key to helping children get out of difficult situations, and today we take this partnership a step forward by reinforcing education in countries where it is needed.”

With half a million dollars to be divided between SOS chapters across the globe, LV has set aside approximately $122,000 to support the SOS Family Strengthening programs in Davao, Lipa and Tacloban, which provides aid to families and children at risk. The program puts a premium on preventing children from entering the work force, assisting families perilously close to abandoning offspring due to extreme poverty.

“Child labor is an international issue that contradicts the values we share with Louis Vuitton, that of a safe educational and loving environment where children can grow,” says SOS Children’s Villages International secretary-general Richard Pichler. “We hope that this initiative with Louis Vuitton will help children to learn and develop into adults that have the skills to be independent and be responsible for themselves in society.”

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For more info on SOS Children’s Village, visit www.sosphilippines.org or call 807-0764.