Member Spotlight: Virtual Reality as a lifeline - Foróige GoVirtual

Tom Rickard is the VR Development Officer with (Eirmersive Member) Foróige. The Irish Times interviewed him, along with parents and young people, about the work of Foróige GoVirtual.

“It’s engaging young people who can’t access face-to-face youth services,” says Rickard, “That can be for a variety of reasons ... We’re looking at young people who are socially isolated. Maybe it’s somebody from the LGBT community where there might be challenges in accessing youth work services, or young people who are rurally isolated. You might have a young person whose disability actually means for them to attend a youth club might actually take two hours. It’s giving that young person agency to be able to put on a headset and meet their youth worker”.

Read the full article here.

Commenting after publication, Adam Leech, Senior Youth Officer, VR Development at Foróige said, “If the article tells us anything, there needs to be more of this kind of work for young people to have access to.”