Mriya
The Dream for Community During Conflict
War Aftermath: Life-long Mental Health Issues
Mriya (мрія) in Ukrainian means The Dream. Isn’t dreaming the most human trait? What would happen if your most fundamental trait got taken away? One cannot deny that what troubles a soul that experienced war most are the emotional and psychological damages that ensue from it. Mriya is here to support those who suffered psychologically from war and their loved ones. Our website offers a soothing experience given by the intentionally therapeutic design, as well as chatting spaces that pair people together. Those who suffer together, heal together.
MRIYA
Website (Now)
Application (Future)
The website has chatting spaces that match users of different backgrounds but similar stories and lives. These spaces will be enriching to users with trauma or mental health issues ensued by was as they also include professionals and volunteers.
After being asked to sign up and/or login, the users are matched with new people through a recommender system and from there they can engage in conversations or connect through commonalities between their lives. Professional therapists, experts and volunteers are also support resources on the website.
The website is designed purposefully uses “aesthetically pleasing” to provide a “user-friendly” experience.
Tools we used
We used React as front-end and Firebase as backend to store the user authentication such as sign in, sign out and sign up. Also, it was instrumental when we algorithmically matched users together using a built-in recommender system. Through using react, we also experimented with using gifts and videos (after-effects) as background.
Limitations and Obstacles
Definitely the different levels of exposure to the languages used across the group which made collaborative work necessary and more tricky. We also noticed that there is a discrepancy between the updated React syntax and the outdated version in most tutorials and websites. We also faced an issue with overlapping of components.
Next Steps