I need your help to stay at Berklee!

Hi! I’m Zwonaka Mafuna, a South African student that was blessed enough to begin studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, this fall!

Before leaving for Boston, I had been able to raise adequate funds for my international studies, before finding out that the South African arts bursary I had applied for had budget restrictions that reduced each students’ grant amounts. As you can imagine, this was overwhelming for a third-world student who had already taken out a student loan and sorted out visa and travel arrangements – especially with the knowledge that I would not be able to work off-campus for an income in the United States. This left me with the question of how I would continue to fund my studies in Boston.

After considering my $23,000.00 scholarship from Berklee, I still require another $13,000.00 to fund my next semester, before any institutional scholarships become available. Through meetings with the financial aid office and any staff member I was able to get in contact with, I was informed that I really had no other option but to either find funding from back home (which I had already exhausted and over-researched) or go back home (forfeiting my studies). This is why I decided to rework my GoFundMe and ask YOU for your help to keep me at Berklee!

But you probably have some questions right?

For example,

“Who am I?”

A random student from Johannesburg. I like to define myself by the things I create. So far, that consists of the songs I have written, recorded, and produced independently, as well as photos and videos I have captured to accompany the music. These works have been exhibited in my “Sightseeing” EP that I released at the end of 2022 that was recognised and blogged about by Spotify Africa, Sony Music, TuksFM, and some of South Africa’s most inspiring musicians! With an older sister majoring in film, I also developed my photography and video production skills during the post-high school period I used to fundraise for Berklee.

Since then, I have been creating a new sound and visual representation for my new music and building up my discography, under the artist name “Zwonaka.” My sound has come quite a long way, from performing solos in the school choir at 12 years old, being in a recording studio for the first time when I was 14, to then being invited to record in studios that were once used by names like Hans Zimmer and Jennifer Hudson! I’ve been creating for as long as I’ve had a conscience - hence why I am filled with so much joy at the opportunity to make this my career path! Berklee helps me, a random student from Jozi, make this a possibility.

Links to some of my work!

“Sightseeing” EP and visualisers:

My last single, “Kung Fu”:

Live cover of “Cayendo”:

My introduction video:

A link to my visual portfolio: (coming soon)

“So…why Berklee?”

Berklee has, thus far, been an incredible experience, where I have been able to develop as a musician and creative at a faster rate than I ever could have in the past. I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by and collaborate with like-passionate individuals, with whom speaking about topics like color space transform, mix bus compression, and contrapuntal texture, sounds like sane conversation, rather than gibberish!

Deciding that I want to double-major in Music Business and Professional Music (Music Production and Electronic Production), Berklee has brought me into contact with potential internship opportunities at huge companies like The Orchard, Live Nation, and some of the most prominent artist PR agencies in international music. And even though a couple of months has not been long enough time for me to fully exploit all of these opportunities, I have been able to reach out to a few industry contacts, even arranging for representatives from Oeksound Goodhertz, the plugin production companies (Soothe and Lossy, respectively), to support and watch me present my final project for my Music Tech 2 class!

Selected over the Art Institute of Chicago and The New York New School – who were not as generous with their scholarship offers – Berklee College of Music, has nurtured many legends in the creative industry, namely Quincy Jones, Keith Jarrtt, John Mayer, and Charlie Puth! Associating itself with 50% of your music playlist, Berklee surrounds creatives with creatives and is an environment I am so grateful to reside in.

“I see. Does this happen to other students?”

Yes. The more I looked around for solutions to my issue, the more students I found had faced the same at some point. For some, they received a miraculous source of funding in their seeming-final moments, but for others, they had to withdraw from the school and even choose a different career path. A level playing field is something that students have fought for since universities first opened up to the non-elite. And as part of the black minority here at Berklee, it was made even more difficult for us, before even considering that even fewer of us are African non-citizens.

This is why I used this as an opportunity to make a petition of support, where donors and advertisers of my GoFundMe will be listed publicly (if wanted) on social media to show that they stand in solidarity with any students pushing for greater financial assistance.

So how can we contact you?

Please email me for any additional information!

Please also listen to my music at this link!

https://linktr.ee/Zwonaka

Thanks!