Berlin: Thanks to Avatar, seriously ill students can attend classes (video)

Seven-year-old Joshua seems lucky in his misfortune. The little Berliner has a serious lung disease that actually makes it impossible for him to go to school. But he can take part in the lessons: an avatar makes it possible. Joshua explains how his personal helper works, who embodies him as well as possible in the classroom: Original sound: “He can report. And speak when I report. Then Mrs. Bölkow (the class teacher – AdR) gets it too a sign that I want to say something. For example, you look at me and I want to say something to you at school and I want to report to you there. Then you see on the avatar, on the head here, that I’m blinking white”. Joshua was still at the school when he started school. But then he couldn’t go to class, as his mother Simone Martinangeli explains: O-TON: “Because Joshua has a tracheostomy tube, Joshua. Joshua had to have an operation when he was one year old. And then they said to us, either we put Joshua in a deep coma for three months or a tracheotomy for at least two years, and so we said, now his family, we’ll do the tracheotomy, because if Joshua woke up from the coma, then it wouldn’t all have been as nice as it is now.”) JOSHUA (“Why?”) O-TON MUTTER SIMONE MARTINANGELI (“Because your head would have slept for a long time. And if your head had woken up again, then Joshua been even sicker than now. And that’s why mom said, let’s do it.”) After the death of her husband shortly after the birth of Joshua, she was left with five children and is struggling hard. That’s why she’s very happy that the Pusteblume primary school with its committed professionals, headed by the director Ute Winterberg, is in the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Original sound: “The children talk to him, they laugh with him and one or the other time there is chatter in class. And Joshi can do that quite well.” His classmates confirm that – they can hardly say which they prefer – Joshua or the avatar: O-TON NOAH KÜßNER, KLASSEKAMERAD (“I would prefer both because I like the avatar.”) O-TON BERITAN ASLANGLU, KLASSENKAMERADIN (“And I, that Joshi really comes to school.”) To make all this and more possible, the district school board has organized four avatars for the schools in the district – one such avatar from the Norwegian manufacturer “No Isolation” almost 20,000 euros. In addition, there were and are many organizational questions to be clarified, such as insurance and data protection. And what are the prospects for Joshua? In fact, Joshua will soon be sitting in his place in class again. Until then, however, everyone involved hopes that the school avatar will “do school” as well as possible.