Can a game make you more compassionate? | Young Minds - video Dailymotion

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Can a game teach you to care?  These two undergrads think so. After years of volunteering, Harrison and Sri are now turning pixels into powerful lessons for students — creating games that make empathy the endgame.   Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video

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00:00I believe that it's important to teach empathy to people at a young age

00:04because they will be our future leaders of tomorrow.

00:07Hello, I'm Sri.

00:09My name is Harrison.

00:10And we are the co-founders of Jalan Journey.

00:13We developed digital games to teach students about empathy

00:16and have them learn to play.

00:17So Jalan means walk in Malay and we want our participants to walk in the shoes of others,

00:31be it vulnerable groups or other communities in Singapore, through our virtual platform.

00:36Jalan Journey believes that technology is a very powerful educational tool

00:39to teach students about empathy and have them learn to play.

00:43So our target market is primary school, secondary school,

00:46junior college, even polytechnics.

00:48We alter our games and our programs towards that particular age group.

00:52I believe that empathy is very important for young children to learn

00:56because it's a foundation for the future of our society.

01:02Another day.

01:04Another JJ.

01:06Another JJ.

01:07So Harrison and I have known each other since we were 13.

01:10And back in junior college, we used to do volunteering work, a lot of it together as well.

01:14When it comes specifically for empathy, it's more about the idea of walking in someone else's shoes

01:19and these are things that you really need to go through and experience for you to learn about.

01:24And that's when we came up with Jalan Journey, creating the digital world that we volunteered in,

01:28all in a game so that students could experience it firsthand and actually inspire to follow up in volunteerism.

01:34We teach a wide range of topics, disability inclusion, social inequality, sustainability, financial literacy,

01:43mental health and adaptive thinking.

01:49So our first program came about during the COVID period,

01:52when we were trying to educate students on social inequality.

01:55So we created an entire virtual world that was based on Jalan Koko HDB Estate,

02:00a place that we are both very familiar with because we've done a lot of volunteering work there

02:04with vulnerable groups.

02:05We have a game where the players will get to go to a supermarket

02:09and they're given a certain budget to purchase enough groceries for vulnerable family

02:13to sustain for an entire week, but also remain healthy.

02:16So finding this balance are things that we create in the game.

02:20So in the beginning, when we first started off, the fact that we did not know how to code

02:26and we had no money, so we found the easiest alternative, which was?

02:30We used Google Sheets.

02:32It was a pretty simple, fixed solution.

02:35We have made a more polished version of what it was like before.

02:42So the game A Day In My Shoes was built in collaboration with MDAS,

02:46Muscular Dystrophy Association of Singapore.

02:50This game is actually meant to teach people about wheelchair accessibility,

02:54as you role play as a character who is in a wheelchair, a manual one.

02:57It was actually inspired because I had a personal experience,

03:01having grown up with a cousin who suffered from a donor locoodystrophy, ALD for short,

03:05and towards the end of his life, he was actually in a wheelchair.

03:08And so that was actually something that I have held close to my heart and I wanted to share those

03:13troubles and challenges that he had to go through with other people as well.

03:16So the Jalan Journey team has really come a long way.

03:30Back in 2022, we started off as five people.

03:33Now we have over 15 plus people on our team and this includes of course graphic designers,

03:38game developers, artists, management team, business development reps as well.

03:42We definitely faced rejections at the start. When we went to the first school they reached out to,

03:46they asked us, how much does your program cost? And we answered, how much money do you have?

03:52And then we got scolded. The private principal told us that's just not how you do business.

03:56So I think the main learning point was to really improve how we approach schools.

04:01We actually carried that lesson on to the next school that we approach. We decided to offer the

04:04program as a free trial tester and they decided to believe in us and take a chance on us.

04:09So far the reception has been well. We have been running the program across 60 schools in four

04:15countries. So not just Singapore, but Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam as well. We have run the

04:19program for over 10,000 students. We have actually done our product market fit study with over 1500

04:24students and educators. 81.4% of them actually believe that it has led to an increase in empathy.

04:3170.6% of the students actually proceeded to follow up in terms of volunteerism,

04:35and that was something that we are really proud of as well.

04:41Hello. Hello. Long time no see. How have you been?

04:44Long time no see. I've been good. I've been good. I've been good.

04:46My name is Parif. I'm 17 and I'm in first year JC.

04:50That's all stupid. I mean school is good. There's a lot of different work and it's so much more complex than year

04:55for. I know Harrison and Sri from when they came to ACSI where they actually used Giant Journey as

05:00a form for us to learn about social inequality. I was 15 at the time and I thought the workshop they

05:06gave was emotionally engaging and I felt that it opened my perspective to empathize with different

05:12people. So I actually first played this game three years ago. It was actually so much more different

05:17in the sense that it was still in its development stage. Now there's even a how to play function,

05:21so it's very self-explanatory and easy to play. I think that in my generation especially, learning

05:27through games, I feel like it had a large impact because it's combining learning with gaming which

05:31is what we enjoy in our pastime. The power in the game is that it allowed me to be in the shoes of

05:36those who are less privileged because a lot of times in school we just read about them. After I finish

05:42all my exams, I decided that I want to volunteer more. So last year when I had some free time, I worked on

05:47project about Parkinson's disease which aims to help those who are underprivileged.

05:55Consider it as an investment to empower the next generation of change makers, which could very

05:59well be your own children. So we invite you to come walk with us for there's a thousand stories to

06:04discuss. Thank you everybody. We're very fortunate to receive award by the UN World Summit Awards and where

06:10we were nominated as one of the top young innovators in the world. I think that just sort of solidified our

06:15conviction. Working on Jalan journey really is not the money because there's way better ways to make

06:20money but it's about a bigger purpose really. When you see the impact on students and most importantly

06:26when they go on to volunteer. Seeing them going out there to make a difference is already a big big win for us.

06:45I hope you guys are getting at this point. Great.

Can a game make you more compassionate? | Young Minds

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