TikToker Marie Mbullu Goes Viral For ‘Good News’ About Africa
Marie Mbullu founded Habari Njema in February 2021, and has quickly ammased over 282,000 followers. (Photo courtesy of Marie Mbullu).
It might be challenging to stay in touch with the news when it comes to African countries—let alone positive news. So 20-year-old Marie Mbullu set out to make news about Africa more digestible for people who don’t know where to start, with bite-sized one-minute videos on Tik Tok. And within a week, she gained over 10,000 followers. Her show is called “Habari Njema,” which translates from Swahili to “Good News.”
“I remember it was so hard for me to find African news that wasn't extremely long and boring or covered over and over again. And then I realized a lot of the times what I did find was covered by people who didn't necessarily show my perspective, so there's a lot of bias or just views that would make sense from someone older than me, but that wouldn't make sense for someone my age, from my perspective. So, I decided I'm going to do this myself,” Mbullu said.
Mbullu is Tanzanian-American and lived in Tanzania for a while when she was younger. She now lives in Maryland and goes to school at North Carolina A&T State University for a degree in environmental studies. When she was in high school, she took a trip to the United Nations to be a part of a program about girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and how to advocate for change. This inspired a love for activism.
“If more people can see the beautiful things are going on in Africa, I feel like I know their perspective will change,” Mbullu said. “And I feel like there's also a need for Africans—in general, I feel like as a continent, we're very disconnected, we only know what's going on in our countries. And I thought it was great just to talk to other girls who are doing great things from different countries in Africa.”
Habari Njema does cover mainstream news as well as positive news, as Mbullu sees them both as equally important for telling the stories of Africa. Since starting her channel in February 2021, “talking about everything Africa from politics to pop culture” has landed Mbullu over 282,000 followers on TikTok. She said about 50 percent of her followers are based in the United States, but she does see a lot of viewership in Europe and throughout Africa. To find stories, Mbullu stays current with international and local publications.
“Sometimes I get [stories from] major [publications] like Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, where they cover big major political news or just big major events in general. And then, I follow a bunch of local government news stations from each country. I follow Twitter accounts of popular speakers like in African countries. And then sometimes my followers will send me articles to things about current events,” Mbullu said.
Since starting Habari Njema, Mbullu is now raising money to found a non-profit organization, KUTOA NI UPENDO, which translates to “giving is love.” The nonprofit plans to support sciences, education, the arts and social good grassroots organizations throughout the African continent.
“It focuses on spreading awareness about grassroots organizations in Africa, on sustainable change, so we look for things like that, we're trying not just to throw money at a situation,” Mbullu said. “We like to see organizations that are advocating for things that will do good in the long term.”
Check out Habari Njema on TikTok.
Help Marie register her nonprofit organization KUTOA NI UPENDO by donating to her GoFundMe.