An embodied conversational agent for counselling aborigines

Aboriginal people are the most neglected community in Australia. Although the trauma induced through oppression and genocide by the settlers is long gone, the deep scar still manifests through the consequences that are painfully apparent in their community. One of the consequences of past neglect and torture is the excessive consumption of alcohol and use of illegal substances. This has compounded the agony of aboriginal people to incomprehensible proportions and forced a sizable population into a grinding cycle of poverty and disease. Our paper proposes a novel approach to provide personalized counselling services to the aboriginal people by developing an interactive virtual sociologist as an embodied conversational agent. The system will simulate the role of a real sociologist in advising on strategies to overcome their addiction to alcohol and substance use and hence enjoy the fruits of prosperity with the rest of the Australian community.