Metaverse Health

Posts Tagged ‘AIDS’

(This story originally appeared over at The Metaverse Journal)

The Virtual World’s Story Project (TVWSP) is a partnership between Jena Ball (SL: Jenaia Morane) and Marty Keltz (SL: Marty Snowpaw). We’ve previously covered one of their other story quests and they’ve certainly been prolific in the health and education field.

Their latest project is focused on HIV/AIDS and is titled The Life and Times of Uncle D, which you can get a taste of in this four-minute summation:

This week sees the in-world launch of The Life and Times of Uncle D. It’s occurring on the 1st October at Noon SL time, which is 5am on Friday the 2nd October AEST – you can find out more info here on the TVSWP site.

It’s another example of the power of machinima, and the virtual environments they’re created in, to assist in providing meaning to real world issues.

(For those interested in the use of virtual worlds in sexual health education or in health more broadly, don’t forget to keep an eye on sister-site Metaverse Health.)

We’ve covered Karuna previously for their work with World AIDS Day 2008.

They’ve now made an open invitation to “HIV/AIDS groups, activists, health professionals, organizations, and educators” to get further involved in collaboration. If you’re interested:

Place: Karuna campfire
Date: March 6, 2009
Time: 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Second Life Time (Pacific Time)

Thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.

For further information on Karuna, check out their website

On the Linden Lab blog, Pathfinder Linden has written on the successful World AIDS Day initiative in Second Life, run by the Karuna organisation. He’s coined the phrase ‘Ecosystems of Support’ and it’s very fitting for initatives like this.

Over the past six months, there’s been a significant momentum build in regards to health and virtual worlds, and certainly support networks are pivotal within that development. The challenge is convincing the wider circle of health professionals, individuals seeking help or support and their families / friends that virtual worlds offer another option that can make a real difference.

There’s another new health project in development in Second Life – Karuna. It’s The focus is ‘HIV / AIDS education, outreach and support’ and it’s scheduled for launch on December 1st, World AIDS Day.

Partners in the project include AIDS.gov and the University of North Carolina Center for AIDS research, Community Outreach, Dissemination, and Education Office (CFAR). A centrepiece of the initiative will be a Garden of Experience where those dealing with HIV/ AIDS will share their experiences via photos, video, music and poetry.

The agenda for the 1st December (in PST / SL time) is:

Complacency is one of the key challenges with HIV / AIDS education, particularly in the developed world. Projects like this will hopefully garner some significant mainstream media interest and heighten the awareness of the issue amongst ‘at-risk’ populations – which is pretty much the whole population.

Find out more about Karuna here and we’ll post a SLURL when it’s available. Thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.