Extended Reality Technologies and Social Inclusion: the role of Virtual Reality in Includiamoci Project

The project is led by the Nova Vita voluntary association, which provides assistance to people with diversities, involves about 80 subjects in the area of the province of Lecce, and involves the collaboration of three partners in the fields of school, theater and ICT. A virtual museum of works of art has been created, accompanied by information sheets and video and audio insights, which place young people with diversabilities at the center of the experience, who become active protagonists of the experience and co-creators of content, with a high level of involvement and participation. Unlike other information and communication tools, learning processes mediated by virtual reality have a specifically pragmatic and simulative character whereby knowledge of the world is the direct result of interacting with it and observing the behavior of others.

The methodology adopted by the project is based on the use of art therapy techniques, aimed at stimulating the participants and involving them in the creative process, with the subsequent elaboration of the content: this choice was dictated by the countless benefits that the process of artistic creation allows, enabling each person to use a nonverbal language to express feelings and emotions and to be able to communicate their state of mind even in the presence of obvious difficulties. The use of technologies, such as virtual reality for the virtual museum and spatial augmented reality for the digital sets to be used in a theatrical performance, made it possible to remove barriers, "immersing" the participants in a walkable and visitable space of which to be protagonists as creators, storytellers and users.