On this debut episode, we hear from Innocents at Risk founder and director Deborah Sigmund and retired flight attendant Sandra Fiorini, who for many years has worked closely with Innocents at Risk in training aviation industry personnel and reporting suspected incidents of child trafficking. We'll hear about that work and several of those incidents in our conversation.

"Turning A Million Eyes To Save Lives" is a podcast co-production of Innocents at Risk and Studio C.

Since 2005, Innocents at Risk has been working to raise awareness about the horrors of child trafficking in America and around the world. In 2008, Innocents at Risk launched the Flight Attendant Initiative to train flight attendants, who are our first line of defense in spotting and reporting situations of trafficking, and a year later, Innocents at Risk founder Deborah Sigmund took the Flight Attendant Initiative to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  An official protocol was established with DHS after several meetings that included Deborah and senior American Airlines flight attendant Sandra Fiorini.  That protocol, called Blue Lightning, is used to this day.

Innocents at Risk conducts educational outreach programs through churches, clubs, organizations, schools, and embassies, and now this podcast.

Andy Miles hosts this monthly series which seeks to educate and motivate listeners through a series of conversations with flight attendants and passengers, hotel employees, transportation officials, government officeholders, and anti-trafficking activists who are making a difference and helping to save the lives of women and children.  We'll also hear the real-life stories of survivors of human trafficking and, using the DHS Blue Campaign Training, we'll help everyday citizens be able to identify red-flag situations and how to report them.

Episode 1 of Turning A Million Eyes To Save Lives (Deborah Sigmund and Sandra Firorini)

Today on “The Hard Question,” Blanquita Cullum is joined by Mario H. Lopez, president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, an advocacy organization that promotes liberty, opportunity, and prosperity for all in public policy.  He says the federal government is working toward reinstating “fiduciary rule” that would hurt underserved communities.  Hispanic and Black families typically earn less than others, and their employers are less likely to offer 401(k)s or other retirement savings plans.  In fact, nearly two-thirds of Hispanic families and more than half of Black families don’t have any form of retirement savings account.  The federal government move to impose rules that could hurt the ability of many Americans to save for their retirement could be devastating.

Visit "The Hard Question" show page: www.studiocchicago.com/the-hard-question

Will the federal government's plan to reinstate ‘fiduciary rule’ hurt underserved communities?

"The Hard Question with Blanquita Cullum" is an unbiased and impartial interview-based program, illuminating key issues pertaining to Washington politics, national defense, homeland security, energy, the environment, the economy, and much more.

Cullum says that what “The Hard Question” is all about is “trying to help the audience to be empowered, to be able to hear a deeper level of a conversation on an issue that may impact them and change their life.”  With decades of experience in broadcasting and government service, Cullum knows the decision makers, and her guest list routinely includes the names you hear in the headlines:  governors, senators, ambassadors, foreign heads of state state, as well as regular citizens.   

“When someone listens to my show,” BQ says, “I’m going to have people that you’re not normally going to hear in other places.  For example, if something’s breaking anywhere in the world, there is going to be a good chance, because of my connections with those journalists, I’m able to get our audience plugged in faster than anyone.  From the right and left they trust me because they know that I’m not reckless.  I’m not irresponsible.  I’ve proven to all sides that I just want to be a good presenter of the truth, and the truth stands more than any political point of view.”

Cullum, who worked in both the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations, concedes that she leans “more to the right.  ‘The Hard Question, on the other hand, is not my opinion,” she says.  “It’s my ability to ask tough questions to people who are knowledgeable, make a difference, decision makers who have information that the public needs to have good, tough questions asked. “And the thing of it is, I’ve lived like a lot of people:  I was a Democrat.  I’ve been a Republican.  But I’ve also been, like a lot of people right now, an Independent. I learned that politics is not a spectator sport.  I like to empower my audience to know how to be able to communicate with the people that are making decisions about their lives.  And sometimes people are not going to agree with me, but the fact of the matter is, that doesn’t matter.  It’s not about me.  It’s about getting to the core of the topic.”

Will the federal government's plan to reinstate ‘fiduciary rule’ hurt underserved communities?

The Hard Question

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