Companions of Social Inclusion

Funded by The Hong Kong Jocky Club Charities Trust

Jockey Club Enhancing Youth Empathy Project through Immersive Visualisation enables young people to develop compassion for 1) ethnic minority groups, 2) the elderly and disabled, and 3) nature and the environment. The project is funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust and led by City University of Hong Kong. It comprises three related programmes that utilise the University’s strengths in immersive visualization technology. Young people will be encouraged to develop their skills through "perspective-taking" and "role-taking", and create innovative solutions that meet the challenges and problems that different groups face.

Companions of Social Inclusion (COSI) is one of the programmes under the Jockey Club Enhancing Youth Empathy Project through Immersive Visualisation.

COSI aims to provide a series of training workshops and learning activities to enable Hong Kong youths to cultivate cognitive and affective understanding of the challenges, barriers, frustrations and possible discriminations faced by ethnic minority groups in our community.

COSI will enhance students' empathy and capacity to apply their knowledge and skills to design innovative solutions, both technological (particularly with the use of virtual reality technologies) and non-technological ones, to promote an inclusive society and empower the minority groups to enhance their coping skills and management capability in core domains of their everyday life.

Related Publications

Li, C., Kon, A. L. L., & Ip, H. H. S. (2022). Use Virtual Reality to Enhance Intercultural Sensitivity: A Randomised Parallel Longitudinal Study. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics, 28(11), 3673-3683. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2022.3203091

Li, C., Ip, H. H., Wong, Y. M., & Lam, W. S. (2020). An empirical study on using virtual reality for enhancing the youth's intercultural sensitivity in Hong Kong. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 36(5), 625-635. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12432

Ip, H. H. S., Li, C., & Wong, Y. M. (2019). A Preliminary Study on Using Virtual Reality Technologies for Cultural Sensitivity Education. In 13th International Technology, Education and Development Conference (pp. 8189-8193). IATED. https://doi.org/10.21125/inted.2019.2022