Virtual Ukraine Project Metaverse Social Support Application

The Virtual Ukraine Project: Metaverse-Enabled Refugee Social Support Groups: The invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a complex chain of global economic, social, and personal disruptions and will likely lead to severe psychological consequences in many of those who have experienced the trauma of war. There is a critical and urgent need to enable an infrastructure that can support quality mental health care at large scale that is both accessible and affordable. The use of clinically oriented Virtual Reality and Metaverse strategies of documented efficacy should be aggressively explored to determine how they could play a critical role for enhancing the delivery of care.
This video shows a segment of our first pilot session of a Metaverse-enabled, avatar-embodied, social support application with Ukrainian refugees who have relocated to Bucharest. The Virtual Ukraine Metaverse are virtual spaces that were developed to help Ukrainians affected by the war by providing users with a safe and private virtual space where they can gather together. It allows them to create and customize avatars and participate in a group session with complete anonymity, where the user name and email is not linked to their personal data. Users are also able to create avatars that have no resemblance to themselves and the platform allows user voices to be modified so that their identity can be further protected if they choose to do so.
In this clinician-facilitated discussion session, three Ukrainian women discuss some of the day-to-day challenges and adjustments that they have had to make after fleeing their homeland at the start of the war in Ukraine. This prototype Metaverse world was created from a spherical image of a familiar public square in Kyiv to set a safe and familiar context for this experience and was developed and donated for this project by the 8agora team (George Deac, Lisa Orlandi, and Andreas Sibrai). It is accessible from any device that has an internet connection and anywhere in the world. This Metaverse strategy is designed to provide a welcoming, safe, anonymous, privacy-protected space for Ukrainians, who have had their lives disrupted by the Russian invasion, to share their experiences and have difficult discussions as they try to adjust to the pragmatics of life as a war refugee.
This work is part of a larger trauma-focused virtual reality program for addressing Ukrainian mental health issues, including the translation of USC's evidence-based PTSD VR exposure therapy application, BRAVEMIND, for the trauma-focused treatment of Ukrainian victims of war trauma. The larger context of the Virtual Ukraine Project represents a partnership between the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, the University of Bucharest, the International Institute of Postgraduate Education in Kyiv, Ukraine, Fountain Digital Labs, and 8agora. Standby for more developments!

[@YinLawn]

Wow, when my father was a refugee, the top of his priority was FOOD and roof over his head. How things changed. Now refugees can get VR set, computer and internet access.

[@SkipRizzoClinicalVR]

Basic needs are still relevant, but in view of the massive mental health challenges that Ukrainians will face due to the trauma of war, this is the start of a long term effort. I wish we had this capability for your Dad and the other refugees who have suffered horrifically, but now we do and intend on developing it to address one part of an extremely complex problem that will not go away soon. btw, this can also be accessed from a basic flatscreen computer, not just with a VR headset.

[@markkuroski2571]

My father is hosting a Ukrainian family here in the US who have been displaced from their home due to the war. He is fully set up for virtual reality and familiar with the technology. Is there a way we could get connected with this project? Who would we contact about joining future sessions? Thank you!