From Tembi village, he has not only built a large business but also discovered a new meaning to life.
A silver-haired Caucasian man stands outside a workshop with a relieved
look on his face. Dozens of local people are busily working inside
the workshop, producing various handicrafts from pandanus bark, natural
stone, and marble. Some are weaving pandanus; others are painting the
finished pandanus containers.
This is just one of Warwick Purser's workshops in Tembi village, Bantul, which luckily was unharmed by the major earthquake in Jogja last year. Also undamaged were Warwick's other workshop that produces goods from resin, a training center for 60 women widowed by the Aceh tsunami, the showroom, which displays around 1,000 product items, and Warwick's traditional joglo style home.
Warwick has a right to feel pleased. Each of the 287 families in the village has at least one family member working for his company, PT Out of Asia. In all, 320 people in the village work in Warwick's'workshops, warehouse, or office. Any disruption to the production processes would affect every family in the village.
Though his company's facilities were unscathed, around 126 homes in the village were damaged by the earthquake. Most of these have since been repaired by Warwick, with assistance from an international bank; a few others are still waiting their turn. Rubble was still lying around when we walked from one workshop to the other. Some of his samples and products were also damaged, but fortunately, everything was properly documented and kept in a database.
Largest
Exporter
Looking at what people are doing in Tembi, you wouldn't assume that
Warwick is Indonesia's largest exporter of handicraft products, and
indeed one of Southeast Asia's largest handicraft exporters. But Warwick
has workers not only in Tembi; he also works with subcontractors throughout
Java, Sumatra, Bali, and Lombok, with around 10,000 individuals involved
in handicraft production. PT Out of Asia offers 35,000 product items,
including placemats and coasters, vases, bags, souvenir holders, newspaper
racks, photo frames, furniture and household accessories. The materials
range widely — wood, ceramic, stone, leather, natural fibers,
textiles, resin, and even recycled materials. The turnover for these
products comes to US$ 25.6 million per year.
Warwick supplies goods to a huge range of well-known retail chains — Harrods, Marks & Spencer, the Body Shop, Crabtree & Evelyn, Crate & Barrel, Macy's, Habitat, and Target. To meet the demand for handicraft products within Indonesia, he founded Warwick Purser Lifestyle, which focuses on retail sales of high-quality handicrafts. "But that accounts for only around one percent of"our production capacity. Most of it, 99 percent, we export," Warwick explains. Around 65 percent of the exports go to the United States market.
A Mutual Meeting
Warwick is no newcomer to Indonesia. He first came to Indonesia in
1968. In 1969, he established Pacto Travel in Bali, and served as
its director for 11 years. He then became a consultant for the UNDP,
and 17 years ago he returned to Indonesia. "In total, I've lived
in Indonesia for 25 years."
He refers to his discovery of Desa Tembi as "finding each other". Twelve years ago, a handicraft supplier company asked him to seek out samples of handicraft products produced by rural communities. "Warwick traveled from region to region, eventually ending up in Tembi, many of whose residents earned their living producing pandanus-leaf handicrafts. He fell in love with Tembi; one year later, he founded PT Out of Asia, and Tembi village started to get busy.
"In those days, many people in this village were out of work,
the children didn't go to school, and there were no decent paved roads.
So my main purpose at that time was to create jobs for people. Once
people were working, the other problems started to straighten themselves
out," Warwick recalls. After opening an office, he set up a workshop
and brought in several trainers. Though most Tembi residents had the
knack for making things by hand, the quality did not meet buyers' standards. "When
we started our business, around 50 percent of the goods we produced
were rejected by buyers. Now, with all the innovations, product development,
and far better quality control, the rejection rate is only around 2
or 3 percent."
Even now, there are still around 40 underprivileged families in Tembi, but Warwick has established a foundation to assist them. The foundation has helped 140 Tembi children stay in school. "As you can see for yourself, the roads in the village are much better now, and people's homes have been upgraded. Some were damaged by the earthquake, but we'll repair them."
Indonesian Citizen
Warwick, who is now over 60 (which he refers to as "late middle
age"), lives in a 150-year-old joglo house with a garden, swimming
pool, and a view of the rice fields across from the house. He enjoys
local food such as Javanese fried rice, fried duck, and terancam (mixed
raw vegetable salad with grated young coconut), jogs for an hour every
morning, and swims half an hour each day. He spends only one or two
days a month in Jakarta. His daughter Polly, a designer, lives in Bali.
Perhaps because he feels Tembi is now his home, a few months ago Warwick finally resolved to become an Indonesian citizen. "My heart told me to become a naturalized citizen. I've lived here long enough, and this truly is my home." Warwick says that the formalities to become a citizen went quite quickly, as he received a lot of support. "It was the process in my heart that took"such"a long time. Even though I fell in love with Indonesia when I first set foot in Bali, I never took any real action in that direction until just a few months ago."
Others may feel that Tembi village is truly blessed to have a Warwick Purser, who has not only created jobs for its residents but also built schools, clinics, a foundation to help disadvantaged families and children, and a studio where people learn dance and gamelan. But Warwick feels he's the lucky one, because he discovered Tembi, and the village has made him what he is today.
