One has to ask, is this true? Is that why certain blacks are successful and others are not?

Maribel Lopez Velazquez talks about starting her own home business and her thoughts on women's empowerment.

By Lauren B. Howard, Audrey Leon and Ambar Gilmore

Maribel Lopez Velazquez starts every day at 6 a.m. enthusiastically greeting busy parents and sleepy children from the top of her front porch at her Cicero home day care center.

Lopez Velazquez, 37, a single mother of four teenage children, lights up with joy whenever she talks about her students that range from infants to 12-years-old.

“Loving children is not the ingredient you need to open up your child care,” Lopez Velazquez said. “The ingredient you need is dedication, perseverance, you want to do something for yourself.”

Lopez Velazquez founded Bundle of Joy Group Child Care, 1626 S. 57th Ave., after attending the Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC) child care expo in 1998.

The center, at 8 S. Michigan Ave., provides assistance to those women who want to start a new business or those who already have.

Lopez Velazquez is one of 55,000 women that the center has helped in its 25 years in business. It has established 14 women’s assistance centers in six states including Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

In 1986, Hedy Ratner and Carol Dougal created the Women’s Business Development Center, a non-profit organization, to empower women by encouraging them to go into business for themselves.

“[The center] was really a critically interesting new way to economically empower women through business ownership,” said Ratner, co-president and founder of the center. “Because we felt that women needed to find their own way and their own power so they wouldn’t be dependent on others. Like white males.”

The Women’s Business Development Center holds an annual child care expo with workshops for Spanish- and English-speaking entrepreneurs looking to start their own day care business.

“I saw all these conferences coming up and all these workshops and I enrolled,” Lopez Velazquez said of the development center. “I took an active role to get more information.”

Ratner sees the expo as an important resource for those wanting to go into the child care field.

“The childcare expo was a way for us to bring together those who were thinking about going into the childcare business who were family providers of childcare or those who were establishing childcare centers or had childcare centers,” she said. “(We) provide them with information on trends; new resources they could use to be more successful.”

Maria Lopez, director of the Latina Business Program at the center for the last three years, points out that opening a daycare center is often overlooked.

“[The child care expo] is for the women who are already running a business and never really looked at it that way,” Maria Lopez said. “This was an opportunity for them to learn about the business aspect of taking care of children, teaching children, educating them.

“It came up because there was a need in the community, across communities,” she said.

With urging from her mother to start her own business, Lopez Velazquez began marketing her business idea to her community to drum up support.

“I started promoting in the neighborhood,” Lopez Velazquez said. “I started a child care waiting list. By the time I started my day care I had 25 kids enlist.”

Maribel Lopez Velazquez, owner of Bundle of Joy Day Care in Cicero, stands beside a decorated wall in her home day care center on May 29, 2010. (Photo by Audrey Leon).

The Women’s Business Development Center created the Latina business program in 2002 to supplement its original focus because of the growing Hispanic population in the Chicagoland area.

“The issues of economic dependence are even greater in the Hispanic community,” Ratner said. “We wanted a program that would do all of our counseling, financial assistance, and entrepreneurial training for the Hispanic community, but in Spanish, for Latinas and their families.”

Maria Lopez said that the center assists women by providing workshops and one-on-one counseling.

“We sit with them and talk about projections and get a budget together, she said. “Sometimes we’ll have situations where we’ll have to help to work on our client’s own personal finances so that they can build up to and obtain a loan eventually,” Maria Lopez said.

Lopez Velazquez turned to the WBDC when it was time to apply for a business loan to remodel her home to suit the needs of her growing business.

“[The center’s] business planners coached me; directed me; helped me out in those [financial] areas,” Lopez Velazquez said. “The Women’s Business Development Center helped us to be more professional, more witty when it comes to financials and to be more business woman-like.”

With an operating budget of $2.2 million and a full-time staff of 24 employees, the organization is able to fund workshops and informational sessions, however, it does charge a fee for its child care expo.

The center receives its funding from a variety of sources, Ratner said. This includes local, county, state and federal government as well as private donations. It also receives help from the Small Business Association.

Ratner says many corporations and foundations see the center’s childcare initiative as serving an important need in the community.

“The McCormick Foundation is a major funder of the Women’s Business Development Center’s childcare initiative,” Ratner said. “They see this as critically important part to provide early childhood education into diverse communities around the city and county,” Ratner said.

Currently, Lopez Velazquez has 12 children enrolled in her home day care, which operates from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Lopez Velazquez holds a Bachelor’s degree from Governors State University in University Park, Illinois, and a Master’s Degree from University of Illinois-Chicago in Social Work.

The staff at Bundle of Joy, made up of one full-time and one-part time teacher, is required to have college course work in child care development.

Bundle of Joy’s facilities resemble a traditional elementary school classroom with handmade artwork hanging on the walls, and multiple learning and play centers for the children.

Iris Colon, teacher at Bundle of Joy Day Care in Cicero, helps a child point out an apple in her book. (Photo by Audrey Leon)

Lopez Velazquez continues to give back to the community by doing motivational speaking engagements and workshops.

“I was invited to an all-women conference to teach belly dancing,” Lopez Velazquez said. “I believe belly dancers dance with confidence and that’s what I want to boost in women.

“I believe if you give them the right tools, they will reach for the stars,” Lopez Velazquez said.

Journalists of today seek job opportunities with descriptions that closely match a series of jobs, as opposed to just one. The competitive news industry seeks journalism professionals who not only have experience writing, editing and reporting, but also skills in the use of various forms of technology. Although job listings for prospective journalists may not always list knowledge of specific media as a requirement, that experience is expected.

For example, WGNtv.com, is seeking a General Assignment Reporter, and although, the position does not explicitly state specific technological or media skills, those skills are a necessity in today’s market.

On the other hand, CBS2.com is seeking a Weekend Anchor/Reporter and explicitly states what the station expects of the news talent.

Despite how the job description is stated, potential candidates can never go wrong with having too many skills.

Seeking a job in any industry can be an arduous process. But, in the competitive news industry, novice journalists are expected to network and seek out opportunities. One way to network is through social media sites such as LinkedIn.com or Youtube.com. Subscribing to LinkedIn.com can be beneficial because you can make connections as well as post a resume, seek job opportunities and create an online portfolio. Youtube.com, on the other hand, can mainly be used to post a package instead of sending a VHS or DVD to prospective employers. Even if after submitting a resume and package, some potential employers do background searches on the potential talent just to see if they have a Web presence.

In conclusion, multi skilled journalists can present themselves to prospective employers by demonstrating their skill set and Web presence by subscribing to social media sites in lieu of sending a resume, cover letter and VHS/DVD package.

RSS, also known as “rich site summary” or “really simple syndication” is used to provide Internet users with specific selected content. RSS feeds function co-dependently with Web sites or blogs and generate alerts to users when new material is available. The material is then viewed or played at the discretion of the user.

To determine which Web sites or blogs subscribe to RSS feeds, one will notice an orange button containing a series of arcs emitting waves on the Web site or blog, like the ones below.

(Images provided by Google.com)

A great example of RSS feeds can be found at MSN.com or MSNBC.com. Just by clicking “RSS” located in the lower left corner of the website and one of the images below, one can subscribe to various content such as news, celebs (celebrities), money, business or sports.

The feeds selected can be saved to the “my msn” page. This can be beneficial if one has a MSN.com account, if not, MSNBC.com allows people to save RSS feeds who have accounts with Yahoo.com, Google.com or Bloglines.com.

E-mail and text messaging are other forms of emerging media. News stories delivered via email can contain images, audio and video components. Users can then view entire reports, or short messages linked to Web sites containing entire reports. I subscribe to ABCNEWS.com and receive email and SMS or text messaging alerts of breaking news. Below is an example of an email alert from ABCNEWS.com

Another form of emerging media is billboards. Although billboards are considered an older form of advertising, they have gained popularity with news organizations because of their locations and the frequency of changing content. Billboards are strategically located in high traffic areas, by stop lights, stop signs because the constantly changing content piques the interest of the public.

The final and most interesting form of emerging media is RBDS, radio broadcast data service, which has not, but may eventually, be used to transmit news to listeners.

As technology advances and media continues to converge, emerging media will allow users and journalists greater opportunities to receive and deliver news.

“Repurposing is taking what has been produced for one medium and tailoring it for another. This means not only streaming the newscast online but placing story text versions online or even raw, unedited video of an event.”

With the linearity of television, the ability to pause, go backward or forward does not exist and places limits on viewers. Appealing to viewers is a necessity for good journalism and good business. Online broadcasting allows journalists to not only write effective text-only versions, but to also incorporate still images, animations, post interviews or link to relevant sites or documents. In an age where savvy technology thrives, Web site news access is both a want and a need. Great examples of news Web sites that promote the use of multi-media is CNN.com, Atlanta, Georgia, King5.com, Seattle, Washington and Waff.com, Huntsville Alabama, just to name a few.

According to the Principles of Convergent Journalism, “Repurposing allows the broadcast station to expand the reach and shelf life of the journalistic product.”

Exposure to Web news allows viewers to scan news stories, view video or listen to audio anytime, anywhere; updating themselves when necessary.  The Web not only provides viewers access to the news, but weather and sports as well. The increased use of Web sites to repurpose information presents a challenge to radio stations that commonly produce news content, promotions, and giveaways via the Web. Utilizing the Web to produce news content equal to that of news organizations has proven to be advantageous.  who commonly, with a great advantage, utilize the Web to produce news and promotions.

Although Web news sites are similar in design, standard text-only or video report sections and competition, there are plenty of tasks involved in creating those similar components. In an era of convergence and repurposing, one needs to be able to upload scripts as text files, digitize content and maintain the site to be successful.

The role of the journalist is “to gather, verify, and present information in a way that enables the consumer to make decisions on how to live.”

While all journalists are expected to abide by the following principles: to be accurate, pay close attention to detail, provide compelling information, solidly attribute, and utilize proper grammar, usage and punctuation, the principles that guide broadcast news are more complicated. Television broadcasters are expected to address the visual, the moment and the simple.

Broadcast news, specifically television news reporting, relies heavily on the use of visuals. By incorporating video clips, pictures, etc. the audience can focus on the story being told by the visual as oppose to just listening to reporter convey the story. Along with addressing the visual is the personality of the reporter, or how the reporter comes across to the audience. The reporter is not just visually appealing, but also makes the viewing audience feel comfortable and assured that the reporter is knowledgeable of subject -matter. The use of a conversational writing style and simple, clear and concise delivery makes the audience feel included as if the reporter is speaking to them specifically. Television news reporting is time specific and appeals to its viewing audience by appearing at different times of the day, which also enables TV broadcasters to provide “live” and “late breaking” news. Although TV stations are less influential and news rooms, specifically radio newsrooms employ fewer staff, television newsrooms are believed to employ large numbers of people for task specific duties. The need to employ more newsroom staff may decrease with the convergence of newsrooms.