Disadvantaged children living in organised crime families often lack the support needed to stay in education. Early school leaving can lead to difficulties finding employment and social stability, which may cause children to fall into crime when they become adults.

Fortunately, the ‘In the shoes of Cain’ project seeks to prevent disadvantaged children in Italy from committing antisocial behaviour, bullying or crime, and guides them down supportive educational pathways instead. With the aid of state-of-the-art virtual reality technology, the project – funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) – helps disadvantaged children to gain a new perspective.

The project was created by the Italian Ministry of Interior to help the police reach out to disadvantaged children who belong to Mafia families. The police partnered with schools and teachers to design twelve virtual reality experiences simulating criminal activity within a controlled environment.

Sveva was one student who got involved with the project and felt moved by the experience. She said, ‘you feel projected within the scenario. You experience first-hand as if you were the leading actor’. With the aim of preventing cyberbullying, for example, actors act out the experience for students like Sveva.

Sveva and the other children are given the chance to adopt another perspective within the scenarios. By wearing virtual reality headsets, they can see through the eyes of another person.

Sveva clearly found the experience convincing: ‘It looks very realistic; it almost makes an impression on how immersed you feel in virtual reality.’

The immersive virtual reality scenario helped Sveva experience the effects of cyberbullying and to acquire empathy for those affected: ‘I understood that I must not give excessive importance to physical appearance, especially for weight and body shapes that are part of us all.’

This project has the potential to help with many issues. Once an experience is designed, children can view any issue through tailor-made virtual learning scenarios that put the children in the centre of the problem, allowing them to use their own judgement to learn the appropriate lessons.

The virtual experiences are supplemented by educational pathways for the prevention of antisocial behaviour in children. These educational pathways are validated by scientific methodologies, and were developed with the input of 60 teachers.

So far, three of the twelve immersive virtual scenarios have been submitted for scientific validation, including those focused on preventing disadvantaged children from cyberbullying, online gambling, and joining criminal organisations.