Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak interview Cindy and Chris Haughey from Tegu to discuss how businesses can play an important role in ending human trafficking. The Haughey’s talk about why and how they started their business and the positive outcomes they have seen since.

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Transcript

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 10, recorded in July 2011.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:25] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandra Morgan [00:00:30] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:32] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And Sandie, we have some great guests with us today to really help provide some wonderful perspective on some of the things we talked about last time. The push factors, the supply side of human trafficking. And so, I’m so excited that we have folks who are out there really being amazing advocates for this.

Sandra Morgan [00:01:00] Well, it’s fun to talk to friends living in Honduras, working on really wonderful models for prevention. I am very happy to introduce Cindy and Chris Haughey. And I’m sure I’ve mispronounced their name again, but they’ll fix that for me. I want to tell you how I met Cindy. She was doing the Hands that Heal train the trainer with us at Vanguard at the Global Center for Women in Justice and working on anti-human trafficking efforts as part of the coalition in Los Angeles. When she introduced me to Chris, and they eventually got married, I was absolutely fascinated with his incredible grasp of how far back up the stream we have to go to really make a difference. And his story is an excellent model of how we can start to make a difference if we’re patient in a way that will have really long-term sustainable results. So we want to dive right into this. And the first thing I want to do is ask each of you to give us a little bit of a bio. Just tell us who you are and get acquainted with folks.

Chris Haughey [00:02:22] Sure, we’d be happy to. My name is Chris Haughey and I’m one of the founders of Tegu, which is a wooden toy company with manufacturing based here in Honduras. Cindy and I live here and I’ve been running the factory here for a couple of years. Tegu really aims to be the world’s most innovative premium toy company. And we’re currently doing that by making some really cool magnetic wooden blocks. But prior to doing this, I was living in Los Angeles and working as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. And Tegu brought me down here.

Cindy Haughey [00:02:59] And I’m Cindy Haughey and as you mentioned, Sandie, Chris and I recently got married a year and a half ago. And prior to that, I was living in Los Angeles working for Mosaic Church, as well as Los Angeles County Unity Coalition, and for anti-human trafficking. And ever since then, I really just had an interest in being an advocate for that issue. And now I’m living in Honduras and helping Chris with Tegu.

Sandra Morgan [00:03:27] So, Chris, when you told me about Tegu, your vision was much bigger than just making toys and making money. Can you tell me about some of the background to starting and how you chose to do this in Honduras?

Chris Haughey [00:03:51] Yeah. Tegu does have a larger vision than simply running a profitable company, making some cool toys. The idea really started with experience that I had in Honduras with a ministry in home for street boys. There’s a pretty big street kid population in Honduras and specifically in Tegucigalpa, the capital city. And my initial connection was in 2004 with that home. It led to some relationships being formed as the missionaries working there. Such that when I was back on business in 2006, an idea came up to try and start a for-profit business that would begin to generate jobs and extend the mission of the street boys home so that those boys coming out of the home and others like them would actually have some economic opportunities for themselves to earn a living wage at a purposeful and well-paying job, which is a real need in Honduras. So it really kind of started with an awareness that there are serious social needs. There’s a lot of poverty. And in particular, there’s over 30 percent unemployment here. And therefore, one of the biggest impacts that you can have on the society is creating an entrepreneurial business that over time will grow and will employ people as opposed to poor Hondurans without jobs, looking for other means of sustained sustainment for themselves, such as getting involved in the drug trafficking scene or other illegal activities, or for that matter, tend to go to the states where they think they might find better opportunities for themselves.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:32] Sandie, I’m struck by what Chris just sai...