Nigeria’s Doctor Wales, 3 others become first TikTok Digital Well-being Ambassadors for SSA

Nigerian health digital content creator Olawale Ogunlana, popularly known as Doctor Wales, has been named one of four TikTok Digital Well-being Ambassadors for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Doctor Wales, one of four health experts, was unveiled as an ambassador at the ongoing Digital Well-being Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Doctor Wales, who started creating content in 2018, only became an active creator on TikTok about four years ago. He told Technext that his aim at the time was to let people have access to content that would enable them make better health decisions.

This was because he spent so much time explaining medical terms and diagnoses to patients that they should have already known, especially in Nigeria, where health literacy is low. Speaking about what the ambassadorship means to him, he describes it as a very humbling moment.

“It is a very humbling moment for me because of the work that we’ve been doing, my team and I, for the past six years. It is a validation of the fact that we can take healthcare to the homes of people, and the work that we do is valuable to people who use social media platforms. They are getting educated, and they’re getting inspired to change their health behaviours. It’s an opportunity I don’t take for granted,” he said.

Looking forward, Doctor Wales wants to leverage the opportunity to create more inspired content for Nigerians and generally for Africans. He also wants to create a support system to enable other creators who are also inspired by his journey, so they can leverage social media to build their communities actively.

Doctor Wales joins 3 other African creators as an ambassador 

Along with Doctor Wales, TikTok also unveiled three other health content creators as Digital Well-being Ambassadors. They include Kenya’s Claire Kinuthia and Doctors Siya and Sanam Naran, both from South Africa.

Speaking on his appointment, Doctor Siya, who has amassed over 4 million followers since he started creating content on TikTok during the pandemic to combat misinformation, described it as a special moment. 

“I’ve been raising awareness on mental health for a while because I also went through depression. So, to be an ambassador means a lot to me. I know there are many other people who are suffering from different kinds of mental health challenges, and to take care of it, to raise awareness, and to educate the people is like the best feeling ever,” he told Technext.

He further said that social media is now his full-time job, so he hopes to leverage the opportunity to train other healthcare creators, NGOs and health businesses on how to do health communication because there are many people who want to do good but don’t know how to do it.

The Digital Wellbeing Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, aims to engage creators, media professionals, and mental health practitioners to address the challenges of overexposure to digital platforms and promote a healthier online environment.

The summit is themed “My Kind of TikTok” and features interactive and gamified activities designed to enhance participants’ understanding of digital well-being.