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

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 in Cicero stands besides 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.

 With this evolving industry, prospective journalists must be prepared and must be a multiskilled. Employers still want people who can report accurately, clearly and quickly.

 Journalism students must understand the big picture. Some of the issues students can encounter are: media management, employment trends, and employee- employer contracts and negotiations. One thing is to enter the field but another is to move up the news business.

 Language, culture, and local laws are very important in the field of journalism. Developing and maintaining sources is another important factor. 

Obtaining news sources requires networking, and joining news organizations such as:  The Society of Professional Journalists,  The Investigative Reporters and Editors or The American Copy Editors Society .

 Being a multiskilled journalist consist of, being able to write to various platforms, being able to gather information from the field, possess interviewing skills, know how to synthesize and organize facts and lastly how to incorporate text, images, audio and graphics. 

Here is a link of what WGN-TV is asking for its general assignment reporter position.

Prospective journalists can also gain skills by having internships

 Converged journalists will find themselves the need to build a marketable personality, like celebrities have agents; however, hiring an agent can be costly.

Prospective journalists must have a well-prepared resume, a cover letter, and a portfolio that includes samples of their work including a blog or a web site that demonstrates their skills.

 The goal is to market and show others that you are credible, interesting, and professional. The Job interview is an opportunity to test each other sides. During the interview, dress professional, bring extra copies of your resume and sell yourself.

RSS (really simple Syndication) is an internet tool and it is utilized  to push content to media users.  This content is often sent to the user’s computer or to a Web site, which the user subscribes to RSS feeds. RSS feeds are sent automatically.

If a blog or a Web site contains an RSS feed, there will be an orange button with depicting waves emitting from left corner, like we see on the Telemundo Chicago Web site or at the ABC homepage.

E-mail notifications and text messaging are another way of convergence. The uses of e-mail are to deliver breaking news and regular reports such as: sports or weather.  These feeds can be submitted at a desired time of the day and should be sent once they are verified and complete.

NBC 5 Chicago homepage- E-mail sig-up

Telemundo Chicago homepage- text message alert sign- up

These feeds should be sent Tex messaging is great for those users with a cell phone and should be limited to less than 150 characters.  Breaking news are the best stories.  Here is an example of how users can register to receive this content (Telemundo a la mano).  There should be regular updates when using this medium.

Billboards are one of the oldest forms of media.  They are often used to deliver short messages, therefore the information should brief, readable, simple and no more than 10 words.  Billboards are mostly placed near traffic lights.

RBDS (radio broadcast data systems) can be used to transmit short pieces of news.  Using this system for delivering news has to be limited to headlines or brief stories.  As technology progresses there will be new forms of delivering news.

Web site creation can be done by station own personnel or by contract i.e. World Now or by IBS (Internet Broadcasting) which they handle larger markets.  There are three reasons why websites appearances are the same:  design, all are standardized, and competition.  All stations constantly are looking what others are doing.

The web combines print and online media strengths, this enables its viewers to scan and read stories.  Websites’ content differentiates in “staff size and organization”. Principles of Convergent Journalism (pg. 77).  Newspapers have the largest staff followed by TV and radio stations. Audio and video has become an important factor in the convergence process. TV has received criticism of viewers’ inability to re-watch broadcast stories, however, “The internet is changing audience expectations” (pg. 77).  News consumers can re-watch and analyze station content at a schedule time or they can also log in to station websites, like NBCchicago.com

Web stories are not limited as on television, but to “keep it short” is essential. To keep the audience interested there has to be interactivity.  Networks provide news on a 24/7 basis, however there are “drive times and down times” (pg.86).   Websites need to have local news, weather, and sports.

Stories such as, a car crash, or the vivid images of an explosion are more dramatic and emotional because the activity on the screen. In the other hand an in depth story or a complicated story like a new legislation works better in print. The reliance on visuals is key in broadcasting. Writing to video is fundamental because it will be easier to write the script. To better present a story it is important to obtain all the elements of the story such as: sound bites, close ups of the speakers/ interviewees and lastly b-roll of the event.

Television is time-sensitive and it operates around the clock. Each medium has their specific and appropriate time to broadcast it stories. Morning shows tend to have a rundown of light stories; mid-day shows are typically geared to viewers at home, top stories and special reports. Where as the late night newscasts are more of a wrap up of the stories of the day. Producers and Writers considers the format of the story and each one has its own timing. These forms can be: reader, voice over/sound on tape (VO/SOT), package or a package aired live and all should be clear, and readable.

Other important factors in broadcast are the reporters and the anchors, they are important to the station as well to the viewer. They are the image of the station. Appearance is a viewer’s expectation, therefore, they should be: authoritative, friendly, energetic and sincere.