AFRICA| At age 28, Gertrude Awino Njeri Juma popularly known as Miss Trudy is one of Africa’s most accomplished and revered young YouTube personalites, vloggers and digital media influencers creating a positive impact on the African Continent, she is one of the best in lifestyle and travel vlogs. Through her YouTube channel, @ MissTrudy, she unveils travel vlogs, African Village videos, house tours, and restaurant reviews. Miss Trudy has done house tours with millionaires in Kenya, travel videos around Africa to countries including Burundi, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Singapore, Tanzania, Uganda, the USA, and Ghana. It was during her trip to Ethiopia that she met the immensely popular Ghanaian travel YouTuber Wode Maya who is now her husband, travel partner, and content creator ally. Miss Trudy also reveals how her husband Wode Maya incredibly helped and supported her YouTube career to a whole new level in the game. Like fine wine, the content creator has improved her interviewing skills and told the African stories in ways only a master can do. Miss Trudy currently boasts over 360K subscribers and has over 870 videos and over 57 Million views and 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.
