40: Sexual Assault Victim To Impact Entrepreneur // The Story of Carlie Rioux

Background:

Carlie Rioux is the founder of Thea Caye, a social enterprise creating stylish and functional beach bags while making a positive impact in the world by creating jobs for survivors of exploitation, using sustainable materials, using bio-degradable packaging, and working with unknown artists to help them build their rep. Through this venture, they can provide scholarships to the children of the survivors to help break the cycle of violence. They support the Drop-In center in Nepal so that present-day trafficking victims have somewhere to go. Carlie and her team are also helping to create jobs in poverty-stricken areas by removing ocean plastics.

In her early twenties, Carlie was sexually attacked 4 times by 4 separate men: a friend, a boss, a date, and a massage therapist. Different races and different ages, different dynamics in different places. Since then, it has been a difficult journey for Carlie, but one morning everything changed for her. Her mom hated beach bags and so does most women she knew. This gave her the idea to start her own beach bag business, which also opened her eyes to the many exploitations happening in the fashion industry and all around her. Carlie knew she had to do something about it, which started her career in impact entrepreneurship.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

5:06 During the launch of her business this year, Carlie was diagnosed with cancer.
6:07 Even though she was taking care of herself and living a healthy life, she felt something wrong with her body. For two years she was in pain until a cyst burst and sent her to the hospital.
7:47 Eric shares a story about how he got blacklisted by a doctor.
11:11 Carlie talks about their health care system and how it worked against her.
13:36 Dancing is Carlie’s passion and obsession.
15:43 At six years old, she started her own business and she grew up in a family of entrepreneurs.
18:39 At 18 years old, Carlie was attacked by her friend and almost got raped. At 19 she got attacked again.
27:34 When she went on a road trip, sleeping in her jeep, she got assaulted again for the third time. This one really affected her.
30:31 Carlie launched a lawsuit against a place she worked on and then she realized she has PTSD.
35:55 Human trafficking in Nepal and Calgary is an issue that Carlie is currently trying to fix and solve.
40:20 Carlie shares her rockin it moments, which are also filled with heartbreaks.
43:53 One morning, Carlie’s mother says she hates beach bags, which started Carlie’s career on impact entrepreneurship.
47:47 One woman in Nepal has a tragic story that has a big impact on Carlie.
51:32 Carlie provides some inspiring words for people who are going through their healing process.
54:07 For people who want to enter impact entrepreneurship, Carlie offers some tips and suggestions.

This Episode Brought to You By:

32:01 The Man, the Myth, the Canadian Legend: Eric Gilbert-Williams. Eric put together this very podcast as a passion project to help you & others. If you’d be so kind to Subscribe & Leave a Written Review of the show, it’d really make our day! You can Subscribe & Rate our Podcast right here: From Rock Bottom to Rockin’ It..

Key Points from the Interview:

“I have so much empathy for the men who attacked me because I know that they are so lost, and that depth of loss is brutal and there’s so much we can do as a society to get ahead of that.”
“It’s okay that you have been broken and shattered, that the shame is not yours. That is not baggage that you should carry any longer, you need to put that shame and kick it right outside your house because it does not belong to you.”