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Zahra Aljabri (right), a fourth-year communication studies student, and M.K. Asante, a first-year

Nommo, which means “the power of the word” in the Dogon language, is the black community’s newsmagazine at UCLA.

Absent from the campus for the past several months, it will be distributing its first issue next week on Feb. 16, and its new staff is excited for its reentry into the journalism world.

Nommo, like other newsmagazines at UCLA, faces a variety of struggles in maintaining a regular publication schedule, problems that range from financial trouble to internal struggles. But after two quarters, Nommo has returned.

“Nommo is really the Pan-African paper for the liberation movement of the whole African continent and the African diaspora,” said Wanuri Kahiu, a fourth-year film graduate student and Nommo’s new managing editor. “It is a kind of forum for reunification.”

This quarter Nommo has undergone a changing of the guard in its staff, which has led to a burst of activity and excitement over the publication, Kahiu said.

M.K. Asante, Jr., a first-year graduate student working toward his master’s of fine arts in screen writing, was hired as the new editor-in-chief of the newsmagazine this quarter and came to Nommo both with a history and knowledge of the production and publishing world.

Asante has extensive experience in both writing and publishing with every medium from column writing to poetry to screen writing.

“Nommo makes me very proud,” Asante said. “The fight against racism is fought on many fronts ... one of them is media, and Nommo is a voice for issues not covered in the L.A. Times.”

Since the start of this quarter, work has been progressing quickly to put out Nommo’s first issue in two quarters.

Asante said more content than could appear in the first issue was submitted, a welcome problem in the publishing business.

But in the past, Nommo has had its share of trouble, though it was not for lack of writers.

Two quarters ago in the spring of last year, publication was interrupted by tragic circumstances within the staff. Charles Gross, then a third-year political science and African studies student and assistant editor at Nommo, was shot in an altercation with a neighbor.

Fortunately Gross recovered from the incident, but the trauma involved affected both him and his girlfriend, Genevieve Richards, who was the editor of Nommo.

Last quarter, Nommo had a new editor, Sheldon Ross. But when it was found that Ross was not enrolled as a student, he was not allowed to continue in his position as editor-in-chief.

“You have to be a student at the time of the check,” said Arvli Ward, student media director.

Nommo is not the only newsmagazine that has been interrupted in its publishing on a regular basis.

La Gente de Aztlan did not publish last quarter but had an issue come out this week on Feb. 9. The magazine did not print last quarter because of financial reasons and other internal difficulties.

“La Gente provides a space for the Chicana/o Latina/o American voice,” said Monica Sandoval Perez, a fourth-year Latin American studies student and the editor-in-chief.

But Perez had a somewhat different version of what La Gente represented in terms of the specifics of the magazine.

“There were conflicting views the older generation of staff and myself,” Perez said. “We have a very diverse Latino community, we want to bridge these gaps between organizations on campus.”

The other difficulty at La Gente was generating enough advertising revenue to cover printing costs.

Ward said the newsmagazines are a branch of Student Media at UCLA, which covers the stipends and operating costs of the staff, but the publications are each still responsible for paying the cost of printing. Each of the newsmagazines at UCLA are nonprofit organizations that distribute their publications for free.

Jenn Chou, a third-year communications students and the editor-in-chief of Fem, a newsmagazine targeting the feminist community, said that generating revenue is always a challenge. Last quarter Fem generated only $455 of their $1500 publishing money goal, so they had to drastically cut the size of their publication, which came out first week of winter quarter.

“It definitely puts a damper on things when you are always worrying about money,” Chou said.

Al-Talib, a newsmagazine geared toward the Muslim population, is the only publication that has found it easy to publish consistently, at least in terms of funding. Its steady income stems from its large community and constituent base, as it has a distribution of about 20,000, said Jameelah Shukri, a fourth-year history student and business manager for Al-Talib.

Nommo is currently working to build up its readership and support by renewing connections with various campus groups and organizations.

“We have a beautiful renewal of vows between the African Student Union and Nommo,” Asante said. “Nommo is our voice.”