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Helping Others & Living a More Satisfying Life

Sacred by Design is part of a growing group of companies called social enterprises.  Social enterprises are commercially viable businesses that trade with the intention to make a profit enabling them to give back to a cause.

We donate a percentage of our annual sales back into the local Laos community focusing on education and sanitation.  All our projects can be viewed here.

Meet our Team

LOVEbomb Jewellery from Sacred by Design

If someone told me three years ago that by now, I’d be designing and making jewellery from bomb material and travelling to Laos to deliver my donations from the sale of these creations, I would have called them bonkers!  I had been searching for more purpose in life since the age of 40. After ten years, I finally found it.

Today I work with four families in the Xieng Khuang Province, who make my own designs from safely sourced bombs that are melted and poured into wood & ash moulds. Our artisans work and are paid under Fair Trade Conditions and in addition to this we also donate a percentage of our sales back into the local community focussing on education and sanitation.

Three years on, we have helped artisans with income opportunities; delivered school and sporting supplies to children of the province; built handwashing stations and a mud brick library. Currently, we are sponsoring the building of a new kindergarten and primary school in a very remote area of Laos that has seen virtually no NGO activity.

Visiting Laos and seeing first-hand the positive impact that LOVEbomb has made is both overwhelming and humbling.  It’s a win-win: I am now living with genuine passion for what I do, and satisfaction from being able to make a meaningful difference in the world.   In other words, I am living my truth.

LOVEbomb Makers – Mr Sone Boummakuilay and Mrs Thone Thammavone

LOVEbomb Jewellery from Sacred by Design is made in Ban Naphia, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos.  Our team of four families is headed up by Mr Sone Boummakuilay and Mrs Thone Thammavone.  Ban Naphia is a traditional Lao Pouan village of 60 households. Sacred by Design follows fair trade principles to ensure that artisans receive a fair price for their products and benefits extend to the whole community. We work with villagers and operate under the principles of fair trade.

The recycled aluminum is sourced from airplane parts and bombs dropped throughout Laos during the Secret War in the 1960s.  The community which produces LOVEbomb’s recycled bomb products have all been trained by Helvetas, a Swiss NGO, on how to handle the metals safely, including smelting and cleaning the aluminum before use.

Sacred by Design is committed to promoting safe gathering practices in villages, including supporting the efforts of Swiss NGO Helvetas to improve livelihood opportunities in Ban Naphia. Based on the interest in spoon making in Ban Naphia and nearby villages, Helvetas has embarked on a project to make recycled bomb production safer and more efficient.

Specifically, they support development strategies to

  • Improve kiln efficiency to reduce wood consumption
  • Diversify the range of recycled bomb products and assist with market development
  • Build a safe aluminum supply chain by providing villagers training on proper gathering techniques, and supporting the work of professional UXO clearing agencies