News Briefs
The Spanish Broadcasting System’s Mega TV Channel 22 has launched “Oppenheimer Presenta,” an in-depth political analysis program conducted by award-winning columnist Andrés Oppenheimer. Mr. Oppenheimer, a well-known syndicated columnist with the Miami Herald and political analyst who has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, has been considered by Le Monde Diary as one of the most influential Hispanic journalists in the United States.
“Oppenheimer Presenta” will air every Sunday at 10:00 PM exclusively on Mega TV. Already an established international political program and EMMY award winner, “Oppenheimer Presenta” today reaches more than 57 million households on 19 Latin American stations, as well as distribution in France and Spain.
“With the launch of “Oppenheimer Presenta,” Mega TV embarks on a new initiative by launching political programming that is highly respected among journalists and political professionals,” says Cynthia Hudson-Fernández, SBS’s chief creative officer and executive vice president.
Prudential Financial Inc. was honored February 8 by LATINA Style magazine during the 2006 LATINA Style 50 awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. that included a reception at the White House. LATINA Style, a national magazine for the contemporary Hispanic woman, ranked Prudential among its top 50 companies that provide the best professional opportunities for Latinas.
Accepting the award on behalf of Prudential, Emilio Egea, vice president of human resources said, “Prudential remains committed to being an employer of choice and fostering an inclusive, supportive work environment that provides opportunities for our employees to grow and succeed. We strongly value the diversity of our workforce and consider it a key to our business success.”
LATINA Style evaluated more than 800 companies on issues readers identified as most important to them in the workplace, including mentoring programs, Latina board members, educational opportunities, alternative work policies, dependent/child care support, traditional employee benefits, women’s issues, job retraining, affinity groups, and Hispanic relations.
A new self-paced learning program is now available to help the home building industry’s 2.5 million Hispanic workers learn English. “Sed de Saber-Construction Edition,” sponsored by Lowe’s, was custom-created by the Home Builders Institute (HBI), the workforce development arm of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), to address job site communication challenges presented by the language barrier.
“Sed de Saber-Construction Edition” uses a seven-book, fully interactive curriculum to teach Spanishspeaking workers a functional level of English language conversation and comprehension. It runs on LeapFrog Quantum Pad technology, enabling users to record, play back, and compare their pronunciation to that of the words and phrases they are learning. The complete curriculum teaches sentence structure, 500 vocabulary words and 340 phrases, covering basic life skills such as following driving directions, as well as detailed job-site scenarios, tools, equipment and scheduling. To address safety-related issues because of the language barrier, the program’s seventh book focuses entirely on safety practices, mirroring the NAHB/OSHA Job Site Safety Handbook protocols. “Sed de Saber-Construction Edition is an opportunity for builders to take a leadership role as it relates to a critical workforce issue for our industry,” says Mike Sivage, immediate past chairman for HBI and a leading force behind the effort. “Empowering workers to learn English can impact safety, communication and quality, as well as boost loyalty, recruitment and morale.”
