Standing at over six feet tall, Sunny Ajang is most at home talking to people face-to-face with his booming, deep voice and big smile.
So when he had to put on a virtual reality headset and listen to a guided meditation, he was a little apprehensive.
Momentarily parting with his precious Penrith Panthers cap to put on the goggles, he entered the virtual world, using his hands to draw out his feelings in the air and add colours to match his mood.
"It felt a bit strange, that technology asking me questions not a human person," Mr Ajang told AAP.
But the part-time Aussie Rules coach, who works with South Sudanese teens, said it could have the potential to help refugee youths who do not necessarily feel like narrating their own experiences of witnessing war and conflict at a young age.
"Youth love to try new things that are technology-related so this could be an impressive tool to help them paint a picture of what they're feeling internally considering that they don't sit down and write on paper that much these days," he said.
The EmbodiMap virtual reality experience tool was developed by the Felt Experience and Empathy Lab (fEEL) at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Young South Sudanese refugees are taking part in the virtual reality project using art therapy to help open up about trauma.
Taking a creative arts and multimedia approach to mental health, the VR tool guides users wearing an Oculus Quest headset to virtually reach into their bodies and draw their immediate or persisting feelings, sensations and emotions.
Mr Ajang coaches teens in western Sydney who wish to follow in the footsteps of South Sudanese players such as Port Adelaide's Aliir Aliir.
"This project started with my own interest in the betterment of my own community, which actually motivated me to get into coaching," he said.
He arrived as a six-year-old in 2003 with his family and in that time has seen his community reach illustrious heights but also struggle with sensationalist and racist discourse.
The low point came when former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and then-Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton lambasted young South Sudanese men for a spate of violent incidents.
Dr Lydia Gitau, who is leading the project, says the art-therapy idea is still in its early phases but if proven successful will be rolled out to other refugee communities in Australia, including Iraqis and Ukrainians.
"It's a creative tool in a sense in that we're looking at other ways of supporting mental health that is beyond use of words," she told AAP.
"Trauma is actually known to destroy language, sometimes when someone is really in pain they can't have the words to express themselves and that is one of the reasons this kind of skill may really help."
Journalism student Kotnyin Thon, 21, arrived only six years ago from Kenya where she spent most of her life as a refugee.
Since landing in Sydney, she has had a range of jobs from hair-braiding to working as a Dinka radio producer.
Ms Thon was hesitant to use the VR tool, thinking it would be a series of "fun activities" akin to a Nintendo Wii, but nonetheless saw the benefits of stepping into a new virtual realm.
"The youth are going the wrong way, they're struggling with language, communication with their mothers and fathers and we need to make them feel like they're at home," she said.
Ms Thon said she supported any creative intervention that would help tech-savvy young people communicate, whether with their parents or each other.
"We need to make them feel connected and make them proud that they're South Sudanese," she said.
"We don't want to see our brothers or cousins being stabbed or dying, we want to change that so they can protect and love each other."
