The "Ask The Paediatricians" community is our inspiration in the time of COVID-19.
Dr. Gbemisola Boyede's Facebook group has connected 580,000 Nigerian parents to more than 2,000 health care professionals. These simple online connections are saving lives.
Hi friends,
Recently, People & Company had the good fortune to interview Dr. Gbemisola Boyede.
“Ask The Paediatricians,” the medical education community Dr. Gbemi sparked five years ago, can offer all of us some much-needed inspiration in the time of COVID-19.
Tune into the interview here.
In Dr. Gbemi’s home country of Nigeria, the child mortality rates are high, but what causes these deaths isn’t a lack of affordable or effective treatments for common diseases. It’s a gap between parents and practitioners that leaves many parents without access to the information and treatment they need.
Dr. Gbemi saw this problem manifesting online. She found herself intervening when everyday people recommended false remedies to fellow parents. Playing whack-a-mole with each of these threads wasn’t going to work, so Dr. Gbemi opened an “Ask The Paediatricians” Facebook group. Its mission is to educate regular parents by giving them direct access to medical practitioners.
The group grew quickly and organically. Today there are more than 2,000 medical professionals who log on to help more than 580,000 parents with their medical questions. Dr. Gbemi has also expanded the group’s reach to parents without access to phones or the internet through in-person organizing that brings volunteers to Nigeria’s most impoverished regions.
What stuck out about our conversation with Dr. Gbemi was how natural her community-building instincts were.
Specifically, she understands that no matter if your community gathers online or off, the secret to community building isn’t about management, it’s about creating leaders.
Dr. Gbemi has done that at every stage of her journey, giving volunteer moderators ownership and tools, bringing other doctors in to do webinars instead of just leading them herself, and giving people all sorts of roles in their local outreach. Alone Dr. Gbemi knows she is limited, but with other medical professionals help she can magnify her impact.
We also smiled hearing about the consistent shared activities that take place in the ATP Facebook group—live webinar and Q&A programs that the ATP community knows they can tune into each week. Remember: Communities aren’t communities if people don’t keep showing up. Consistent shared activities are crucial for any community to gather around, but often forgotten in online spaces.
In times like these when all of our schedules and routines are being rebuilt from scratch, consistent online organizing is one of the biggest values a community leader can offer their people.
We hope Dr. Gbemi’s spirit and work brings brings a bright spot to your day.
Stay tuned for more stories from inspiring leaders like Dr. Gbemi.
In solidarity ✌️
Bailey, Kevin and Kai
People & Company
“Build a community with your people, not for them.”
Has anyone here considered the possibility that the Covid pandemic is a huge scam?