Saturday, April 30, 2011

Video game teaches Cambodian children to avoid land mines

Chhoun Mina, 15, left, Chob Sopheak, 14, and Chamroeun Chanpisey, 11, test a new video game being unveiled in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, called Undercover UXO, designed to teach youths about the dangers of land mines. (Brendan Brady, For The Times / May 1, 2011)

Undercover UXO, shorthand for unexploded ordnance, uses an engaging platform to educate youths about what to avoid in a nation where decades of fighting left the land filled with hidden explosives.

May 1, 2011
By Brendan Brady, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Phnom Penh, Cambodia—

"Turn left, turn right, go back!" her friends urge as she leads her avatar, a pet dog, into a lethal trap and the sound of an explosion rings out from the computer.

In the virtual game world, players can always hit restart, but 11-year-old Chamroeun Chanpisey gets the point. "The game is different from real life," she said. "People have only one life."

The video game, called Undercover UXO, shorthand for unexploded ordnance, is a new tool aimed at educating young Cambodians about the dangers of land mines and other explosives across the war-pocked Southeast Asian country.

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