AFRICA| Gertrude Awino Njeri Juma, also known as Miss Trudy, is a highly accomplished and respected YouTube personality, vlogger, and digital media influencer in Africa.
At just 28 years old, she has made a positive impact on the continent with her lifestyle and travel vlogs. Her YouTube channel, @MissTrudy, features travel vlogs, African village videos, house tours, and restaurant reviews.
Miss Trudy has produced house tours with millionaires in Kenya and travel videos around Africa, including Burundi, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Singapore, Tanzania, Uganda, the USA, and Ghana. During a trip to Ethiopia, she met the immensely popular Ghanaian travel YouTuber Wode Maya, who is now her husband, travel partner, and content creator ally.
Miss Trudy credits Wode Maya with helping and supporting her YouTube career to a whole new level. Her interviewing skills have improved over time, allowing her to tell African stories in ways that only a master can.
Miss Trudy currently has over 360K subscribers, over 870 videos, and over 57 million views. Together with her husband, their mission is to showcase African stories in a positive light and tell the story of Africans from an African perspective.
Miss Trudy recently spoke to The Bizmart’s Editor-In-Chief Isaac Newton and shared her journey and what has made her achieve her dreams.
Can you tell us about your upbringing in Kenya and what shaped your outlook on Vlogging?
I was born to Mr. Rafus Ateng Juma and Mrs. Mercy Wambui(late) on May. 10, 1994, and was raised in the small Kenyatta suburb of Nairobi which is the capital City of Kenya. I attended Milimani Primary School in Kilimani, a suburb in Nairobi City and from there I went to Shiners Girls High School in Nakuru for my Secondary studies. Later, I attended St. Paul’s University where I graduated with a bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication but today I’m more of a YouTuber than a professional journalist. I’m the only girl and last born in a family of three children.
My father is the only surviving parent after the demise of my mother who succumbed to an accident in September 2009 and he has since been very supportive to my success endeavors. I always enjoy a warm relationship with my dad and I have already built his dream retirement home in the village. He is such an amazing dad and has been taking care of us all single handedly.
After University, I worked as a brand promotion sales lady in several supermarkets around Nairobi, I later worked in a research firm from where I would earn Ksh300 per day and cultivated an admirable work ethic when I joined the job market. I got fired from my job in 2017 and decided to start creating content for the then dormant channel that I had created in 2014. My situation then was not good and my father would often give me transport to go and shoot content. I started out small on YouTube, visibly without money and support from other established YouTubers and Instagram.
When and How was your breakthrough?
I first became known when president Uhuru Kenyatta launched the Standard Gauge Railway in May 2017. I became the very first among many to give a detailed documentation of the ride from Nairobi to Mombasa alongside the go-to rural vlogger Kemunto Bear at the beginning of June 2017. The videos immediately went viral and the SGR then became a gold rush for other YouTubers but I garnered more than 100,000 views from my series of videos on the subject. It was at this point I began to show my full ability to evolve. I then shifted my focus to restaurant reviews, financing myself armed with a phone camera. I did what no other YouTuber in Kenya dared to do, vlog in the central business district. I did this seamlessly and with ease. The money spent on the food reviews paid off and I could now afford to travel.
Have you been involved in any other work apart from vlogging?
I was featured in Mr. Seed’s song Ghetto Love as a video vixen in October 2021 and I have also made appearances on several platforms for interviews including on Switch TV and Jalang’o TV.
Any words for upcoming vloggers who desire to make it like you?
They should keep working hard, be focused, not compare themselves with other people and know that nothing is impossible in life.
Article and interview adapted from bizmart.co.com
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