Tania Andre was sexually abused starting at age 3, a secret she kept for decades before eventually founding The Mavuno Project, a Miami Gardens-based nonprofit that has since educated more than 8,000 students across Broward and Miami-Dade counties on recognizing and preventing human trafficking. Andre spent 17 years working in the corporate world as a marketing executive before walking away from that career to confront the abuse she had buried since childhood and turn it into a mission to protect others.
According to WPLG Local 10, Andre said storytelling is healing, and that belief now sits at the center of everything The Mavuno Project does. The organization, whose name means harvest in Swahili, offers educational presentations for schools, churches and community organizations, and provides trafficking-recognition and prevention resources to students, educators and families throughout the region.
From a Strip Club to a Statewide Mission
Andre's path into anti-trafficking work began in an unlikely place. She was led to a local strip club, where she sold jewelry and built relationships with the women working there, listening to their stories about sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. Those conversations, layered on top of the abuse she had kept secret for decades, eventually pushed her to quit her corporate job and launch the nonprofit in 2017.
Florida's adult entertainment industry has since come under new legal scrutiny tied to the same population Andre once worked alongside. Under House Bill 7063, enacted in May 2024, adult entertainment venues in Florida are prohibited from employing or permitting anyone under 21 to perform or work, with violations involving nude performances now classified as second-degree felonies, according to the Florida Senate. The same law updated mandatory anti-trafficking hotline signage required across strip clubs, massage parlors and hotels.
Reaching Classrooms and College Campuses
Today, Andre works directly with college students, and per the station's report, campuses have seen survivors beginning to feel empowered as a result. The Mavuno Project's classroom-based work is also underpinned by state mandate: under Florida Department of Education Rule 6A-1.094124, Florida became the first state in the nation to require annual child trafficking prevention and awareness instruction for all public school students in grades K-12, according to the Florida Department of Education. The rule requires age-appropriate instruction covering warning signs, online safety and reporting resources.
The state has since expanded those requirements beyond students. Following the passage of House Bill 1237 in 2025, Section 1006.481 of Florida Statutes now requires all public school instructional, administrative and educational support staff who interact with students to undergo human trafficking awareness training, the Florida Department of Education notes, with mandated protocols for reporting suspected child trafficking to state authorities.
Extending Beyond the Classroom
The Mavuno Project's reach goes well beyond South Florida schools. The organization conducts outreach in six to seven countries, supports a safe house for survivors in Honduras, and raises support for anti-trafficking efforts both locally and abroad. Beyond K-12 workshops, the nonprofit delivers specialized trafficking prevention and intervention training tailored for commercial sectors including hotels, hospitality businesses, airlines and short-term rental platforms, according to The Mavuno Project.
The nonprofit also partners with IT firm Ark Solvers, co-owned by Andre and her husband, Reginald Andre, to provide cyber safety and anti-luring training, and encourages parents to use safety software on their phones to help protect children online. Andre, a wife and mother, has received an official Certificate of Congressional Recognition sealed by the U.S. Congress and signed by South Florida U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson for her anti-trafficking work, according to the Miami Sport Industry Conference.
Why the Need Keeps Growing
Florida consistently ranks third in the nation for total reported human trafficking cases, trailing only California and Texas, according to Path2Freedom. The Florida Department of Children and Families reported 2,254 child human trafficking reports involving 1,601 individual children statewide during the 2024-2025 reporting period, verifying 596 cases of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children; females accounted for 80.2% of verified cases, and 81% of victims lived at home rather than in foster care, per the same account.
Miami Gardens, where The Mavuno Project is headquartered, has not been insulated from that threat. In July, local and federal authorities, including the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office and Homeland Security Investigations, arrested three individuals for running neighborhood brothels tied to human trafficking in the city, underscoring that such rings remain an active law enforcement issue in the exact municipality where Andre's organization operates. Hoodline has reported on similar brothel busts across Miami-Dade County in recent years, part of a steady pattern of multi-agency stings targeting residential and commercial trafficking operations.
Recognition for a South Florida Advocate
Andre's story was featured as part of Good News South Florida, a WPLG Local 10 segment that airs Fridays on the station's morning news at 10 a.m. and encores Fridays at 3:30 p.m. and Sunday mornings beginning at 6 a.m. The segment is overseen by Mayte Padron Cordones, an Emmy-award winning journalist who joined WPLG in 2001 and serves as director of the station's community relations department, where she oversees outreach initiatives meant to benefit and strengthen the South Florida community.
