How metaverse technologies help to work with children affected by war.

According to the most optimistic estimates, 15,000 children have been affected by the war during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These are those who have directly faced the hostilities, the consequences of the occupation and war crimes. However, the number of children affected by the loss of parents or loved ones can be measured in hundreds of thousands.

In addition to basic humanitarian needs, society needs to address the problem of socialization, working through mental trauma, and educating child victims of war. And often traditional methods are not enough for this.

MaPanda technology allows you to communicate with your child in a metaverse format. During a video call, the child communicates with a teacher or psychologist who appears as a magical character. Thus, the process of communication and learning takes place in a relaxed atmosphere, which makes the interaction between the child and the teacher easier and more reasonable. As a result, the child does not experience additional stress from communicating with an unfamiliar adult, and learning is perceived as a fun and interesting game.

Based on augmented reality technology, we have developed a teaching methodology that is best suited to this format of interaction. Based on the extensive experience of our methodologists and teachers, we have created full-fledged courses that develop communication and socialization skills, help to understand oneself and the environment. In addition, courses in basic academic disciplines (basic math, school readiness, etc.) are useful.Translated with DeepL

The main difference from working with a psychologist is that the lesson is not aimed at identifying trauma or rehabilitating the child, but rather occurs naturally during communication on free topics according to the plan or educational material.

- Olena Korostashevets, psychologist at MaPanda

The combination of technology and carefully designed courses allows us to work with different categories of children, so we decided to cooperate with the Ukrainian Children of Heroes Foundation, which works to rehabilitate and support children who lost family members during the war.

Together with the specialists of Children of Heroes, we have developed a special adaptation of our courses for the foundation's wards. The adaptation was designed to take into account the special circumstances of the children's lives and the fact that they have experienced or are still experiencing severe psychological trauma. We paid special attention to an important aspect: trauma is experienced not only by children, but also by their guardians. 

In practice, it turned out that the children were very willing to make contact with our teachers and were very actively involved in the learning process. Augmented reality and the right approach to communication helped stimulate interest in learning, and, judging by the feedback, children were eager to interact with teachers and were looking forward to new lessons.During the lessons, our teachers were able to identify children who should have received more attention from specialized professionals (psychologists, defectologists, etc.). The opportunity to "open up" to a magical character allowed children to give more important signals that could be missed using only traditional methods of communication. In this way, the foundation's specialists could identify children who needed more specialized help.

The cooperation with the Children of Heroes Foundation lasted for 6 months.
During this time, MaPanda conducted 1017 entertaining and educational calls.
Cooperation with the foundation allowed us not only to help children, but also to establish more effective interaction between specialists and wards. According to the survey, 98% of parents rated their experience with MaPanda as "very positive" and were satisfied with the technology and the work of the teachers. Another important positive effect was the impact on the emotional state of the children's parents.

Working with a magical character gives mothers pleasant and positive emotions. When a child comes out of the room after class happy, many mothers have regained this forgotten feeling. Therefore, we can say that working with our app has a positive effect not only on the child but also on the family as a whole.

- Anna Fomina, MaPanda methodologist

The MaPanda team continues to develop technology and teaching methods to help Ukrainian society cope with the enormous challenge of rehabilitating and educating children affected by war. Our experience can be useful for various vulnerable groups of children, including those outside our country.