The Challenge:
100 Black Men of America, Inc. is an organization with goals to improve the quality of life of African American youths within communities through education. The organization wanted to create an environment where youth and mentors could privately and safely meet from anywhere across the US. Not only was it important to have a private location where youths could feel comfortable, but to have a custom, interactive environment that could be modified depending upon mentoring and educational needs.
The Solution:
Choosing a Second Life Island as the main destination, Designing Digitally, Inc. created a completely customized island allowing for a large variety of scenarios for youths and mentors to use. It was important to have a wide range of settings for their educational purposes to encompass a broad number of possible situations. Locations include a school, dance club, coffee shop, neighborhood with multiple houses, city skyscrapers and plenty of room to expand. Detailed avatars of different ages were created, giving both youths and mentors the ability to choose a more unique look for themselves.
To ensure the students would have no trouble getting to the island a RegAPI was setup, allowing users to create an account from a secure website with direct access to 100 Black Men island upon logging in to Second life. Not only does this give the user easy access to the island, but the RegAPI makes it so the user cannot wander away from the island or land anywhere else accidentally. Additionally, the island features an orientation area for the new users and branded material throughout the island for the organization and their sponsors.
The Results:
The 100 Black Men of America organization is still in a phase of rolling out the curriculum for the Virtual Mentoring Village. Such a bold initiative must be thought through and carried out properly in an organization involving a high number of members. The creation of the Second Life island has opened the doors of possibility for students and their mentors. They are now able to meet and spend time together virtually any time, any day. The effectiveness of the virtual environment is also being evaluated and possible expansions for the future are being planned.
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