Networking

Again the power of asking comes up in this reflection as well. Asking however is combined with networking. I found again that having a wide variety of acquaintances and contacts makes the process of creating a large project like Namaste much easier. Many of the people we ended up working with were people we knew well before Namaste. These people were often times willing to go out of their way to assist us. Teddy, one of the staff, had become a friend of mine a few weeks before this year’s Namaste started and he came to be a very helpful in the completion of the journal. A friend of mine, Pete Maniscalco, a graphic design major in the Uconn art program, became instrumental in the publication of a web-based release of the journal. Stefanie’s friend put together our wonderful cover at little or no request.  On top of friends and acquaintances a network began to be built around the journal itself.  Many of the supervisors we had, gave us access to people who could help us immensely. For example Rachel was willing to call the Andrew Bacon, who had created the human right institute’s website. After her initial contact we had web space in a number of hours.  The journal really took on a life of its own and although things were difficult at times, I felt the enthusiasm about the idea and direction of the journal was enough to perpetuate its own creation and we were merely stewards of the whole process.