Sibongile Buda

She/Her

Is a cultural practitioner, jazz musician, producer, and development advocate based in Pretoria, Gauteng. With over a decade of experience working across arts education, cultural production, and community development, her work sits at the intersection of music, social justice, heritage preservation, and youth development. She holds formal training in jazz and music performance and has built a practice grounded in advancing access, equity, and representation within the cultural and creative sectors. She is the Founder and Director of JCFI Mamelodi (Jazz Camp for Female Instrumentalists), a multidisciplinary arts organisation advancing gender justice, cultural preservation, and economic access for women in music. Through this platform, she has led initiatives including the Mosadi-Sadi Arts Education & Training Outreach Programme, the Mosadi-Sadi All-Female Arts Festival, the Youth Meets Legends Winter Jazz Festival, and heritage documentation projects focused on African women instrument makers. She also hosts and produces the Global JazzWomen Hang, an international platform connecting women instrumentalists across borders. Her work focuses on addressing gender inequality in the arts, limited access to arts education, and the preservation of indigenous knowledge systems within South Africa’s cultural landscape. Her expertise includes artistic direction, mentorship, cultural production, heritage preservation, and international arts programming, with a particular emphasis on supporting women instrumentalists and community-rooted creative practice. She specialises in translating systemic cultural challenges into creative, community-led interventions that expand access, visibility, and opportunity for women and youth in the arts. Her work is driven by a vision of a socially just world in which women’s creativity, knowledge, and labour are recognised, valued, and resourced across generations and borders.