Zama's Senior Year - Fall Semester!

Greetings to all, my name is Zamangwane Kunene and I need help - desperately.

I am a rising senior student at Soka University of America in California USA, pursuing a BA in Liberal arts - concentrating in Environmental Studies. To get straight to it, I need help paying for my Fall 2023 semester as I will not be receiving financial aid for this semester from my institution as I have for the past three years.

I’m going to share a little bit about myself despite feeling weird about it… I am a first-generation black woman from Diepsloot, South Africa, and I recently discovered what I think is my dream for me and me alone - being a specialist in Geographic Information Systems. Before last year, my only dream was to do what I needed to do to break the poverty cycle my family has been in my whole life. I believe that the only way I can achieve both my dreams is through education - I know that life doesn’t always have to go this way and that there are alternatives, however, this path is what I have chosen for myself. I have been believing in and working towards these dreams for more than ten years and I so badly want to make them come true.

I am miles away from my home studying in an institution overseas in freaking California! From Diepsloot?! I still have moments of shock and wonder when I look around and realize that I am indeed here. I am educationally miles away from home as a first-generation college student faced with challenges none of the family members before me can truly understand. I am socioeconomically miles away from my family because, in this institution, I have electricity, food and shelter. In this institution, I can work part-time as a student but earn enough to support my family of 10. The loss of this opportunity will not only impact me but those who depend on me too.

To get here, I have been supported by family, friends, mentors, and even strangers in various ways; financial support, emotional support, life support? That last part doesn’t sound quite right but I mean to say that there have been many people who have helped me navigate through this difficult life thing and for that, I am forever grateful. You all saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself at times, and I ask you to believe in me once more.

Attaining and keeping this education has never been an easy task for me, and for those who do not know me and want to know just what I have gone through to make it this far and perhaps why you should support me, I will be providing a link to a blog of sorts that takes you through my life. I would like to have a little more time to compose it all in a way that makes sense - but as of this moment, I feel rushed as the initial deposit of my payment plan will be due on the 30th of September, 2023. I will also be including the events that led up to this moment, including a three-month-long dispute with a professor and administrators that played a critical role in this decision, a decision that I received on the 3rd of August, 2023. If you have any specific questions, please contact me using the contact button bellow.

In the meantime, to those who know me - as a peer, a friend, a student, an employee, or a random girl who smiles a bunch - please do leave a comment for others to get a glimpse of who Zama is.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Zamangwane Kunene