International partnerships
Participation in European consortia increases your impact. Discover our role as a design partner in international collaborations and European programs, where we actively expand our network and initiate new projects.
Game on sexual health
Shkorey en Shariki
Shkorey is an educational game about sexual health, pregnancy, the human body and raising young children. It was created for and in close co-creation with Eritrean newcomers in the Netherlands. An important feature in the game is ‘Help in your area’, which brings appropriate local support and care closer to the users.
Download Shkorey via:
In short
1
Facilitates open conversations about sensitive topics
2
Addresses the most urgent questions about pregnancy and maternity care
3
The ‘Help in your area’ feature guides users to appropriate care and support
Reducing the distance between caregiver and newcomer with a digital game
Stichting Shkorey makes information about sexual health and parenting accessible to newcomers in the Netherlands. The core principle is co-creation: educational materials are developed together with the target group. 8D facilitated the co-creation sessions, developed concepts, and handled the technical development of the Eritrean edition of the Shkorey game app, which offers culturally sensitive information about sexual health and pregnancy to the target audience in an accessible and playful way.
Shkorey is a great example of how co-creation contributes to support and wide dissemination. A creative team of Eritrean youth has emerged, developing new content for the app and actively promoting it on social media. Additionally, a widely used set of manuals and workshops has been developed for healthcare professionals, ensuring they know exactly how to integrate the tool into their daily work. The success of the Eritrean edition of the app led to its further development in 2025 for Arabic-speaking youth.
Approach
Throughout the entire development process of the Shkorey app, co-creation was central. In collaboration with project leader Geertje Postma, 8D organised various co-design sessions with both Eritrean youth and healthcare professionals. We explored questions such as: what challenges do newly arrived Eritrean parents face in the Netherlands? And what tools do healthcare providers need to effectively inform this target group? Even in later stages, such as choosing the game concept, we continued to actively involve the target audience. This resulted in a group of participants who felt engaged and experienced a sense of ownership over the intervention.
Initiator Geertje Postma: “The journey towards creating the game was just as important as the end product itself. Eritrean youth played a key role in its development, and along the way it sparked many meaningful conversations about sexual health, the human body, maternity care, and parenting.”
Case: Game on sexual health
“De mensen van 8D Games ervaar ik eveneens als charismatisch en gepassioneerd. Daarnaast werken ze heel gestructureerd. Wij hebben al heel wat internationale samenwerkingen gedaan en dat ook wel eens anders meegemaakt. Shkorey is tot nu toe echt een smooth ride.”
Eyram Tawia
CEO
Results
In collaboration with the youth, 8D developed a narrative game centred around a group of friends. Each character faces dilemmas related to themes such as the human body and sexual health. Players decide how each character responds to different situations, with each chapter concluding with a knowledge quiz. This quiz can also be played separately and together with others.
One of the design challenges was finding the right balance between playfulness, creating connection, and integrating preventive health messages. That is why the game features a variety of characters in both familiar and less familiar situations. For example, a father makes choices about actively taking on parenting responsibilities for a child who is not biologically his. These stories broaden players’ perspectives on the options available to them, without being moralistic or imposing a particular choice.
An important feature is the integration of a local care map. This allows players to easily find nearby healthcare providers related to the themes covered in the game.
Publications
After the app was launched, researchers from Rutgers Centre of Expertise on Sexuality used the intervention for qualitative research into the app’s usability and the themes it covers. This research focused on two groups: Eritrean youth and healthcare professionals in various regions of the Netherlands. Several research questions were integrated into the game itself, while input from professionals was gathered through questionnaires. The final report of this research was published in the spring of 2024.
“Many Eritrean newcomers found the app to be a useful and valuable resource, especially due to the Tigrinya language option and the flexibility to explore information at their own pace. This enabled users to learn about important topics such as healthy relationships, pregnancy, and parenting in an accessible way. Professionals who used the app particularly appreciated how Shkorey makes these topics easier to discuss in a way that resonates with the target group.”
Source: Rutgers Centre of Expertise on Sexuality
Shkorey was launched in February 2023. In 2025, the app was expanded with new storylines created by and for Arabic-speaking youth, under the name ‘Shariki’.
Read more about social design
In all our projects, we work according to a proprietary social design method which we have refined over the past decade based on experience. Our approach combines the best of several design-oriented methodologies, with co-creation with stakeholders at its core. The beauty of this approach is that we allow room for course changes based on co-creation, while keeping the momentum going by making task allocations and schedules as concrete as possible.
Research at the heart of society
At 8D, we support researchers in integrating a design approach into their work, from project design to creative product development and process supervision. These participatory methodologies help solve complex, people-centred problems and embed research findings in society in a sustainable way.
