4th Uganda Village Boardgame Convention and Clubs

Aim

Bringing the breadth and excitement of board gaming to rural children in Uganda each year and helping them to evolve their board game clubs.

Background to the Convention

Every year since our first Village Board Game Convention in 2017, we have brought something new and this year is no exception.  Our young people become better and better at running the event, enabling more and more rural children to become more able at learning the board games, as well as our core team of youth, who are continually working to create change, not just with board games, but with every other method at their disposal.  They teach others of the dangers of climate change, the world issue of ocean plastic, the challenges caused by early marriage, the rights of children and many other key world issues of this decade.

We also teach our young people in Uganda about the opportunities they have to make a difference and how they can utilise their creativity to help bring more wealth into Uganda.  We teach them how to programme, how to design, how to solve problems and they use the talents they are able to develop to set up projects and businesses that can achieve change.

We believe strongly in board games and know that the abilities of others in designing modern and exciting board games can be harnessed to teach these rural children a whole range of skills and knowledge - planning, resource management, social skills, international issues, English and Mathematics, confidence building and many more.  Rural children have already proved their enthusiasm for boardgames in the clubs we have been running for three years.  They have kept the games responsibly, despite frequent play and know what sort of games they like best, so they can ask us for new or replacement ones.

New for 2020 - Village Club Development

This year, one of our trainees, Joseph Otim (now aged 19) has been visiting the board game clubs, learning their favourites, teaching games they had been given but needed more instruction as to how to play and identifying leaders within the board game clubs.  We are developing a plan with him this year to move the games clubs to the next stage

Joseph teaching Union Pacific

Joseph will work with our Northern DIrector and each individual club before the Convention, finding their keenest players and those that can show responsibility and leadership, so he can continue to liaise with the organisers and support them with new games on an ongoing basis.  He'll also be interviewing the children in each location to find out which games they like best and which they would like more of, so that we match the games to the clubs.  We'll put games in circulation to other clubs, if they are ready for them to be passed on.

Joseph has completed his A levels now and hopes to study Engineering at university in August but until that time, with your support, he is going to visit the clubs regularly, gradually introducing the new games and trying to ensure gaming regularly at each location.  A high proportion of games donations go into these rural clubs and we were very pleased to see how well they are looking after the games, most of which are still in excellent condition.

Lastly I would like to thank three UK Conventions whose attendees have supported us with games this year:

1. StabCon (Stockport)

2. DellCon (Malvern)

3. AireCon (Harrogate)

Games donated by attendees at Dellcon in January

The 2020 Convention

We have some great ideas for this year and many new games to try out.  Neuroshima Hex has been a huge favourite so far and has attracted multiple plays this year:

Our club members in Kampala love to play games where they can destroy each other, but this one really needs brain power (as well as a little luck).

They are also huge fans of games with money and enjoy trading cash for different things.  This year we have a version of Acquire, which they have learnt very easily and will be bringing to the Convention.

They've enjoyed Shark in the past but but this one is enjoying quite a few plays.

We're going to try some word games this year for the first time.  We have a copy of Word Whizz, which anyone can play and will be bringing Scrabble in too, which is a bit more challenging, at the kids' request.  Our trainees identify English vocabulary as a key area that children need to develop in the areas they come from, where they are not taught English until Year 6.

We've some new dexterity games too, which we are going to try out, which have been donated this year, not just the balancing, but also the flipping type.

We'll be incorporating tournaments too:

1. Omweso, Uganda's favourite indigenous game is known by many rural children and so we will have both a Junior and Senior tournament for them.

2. Queen Games have generously donated four copies of Maharani this year and we plan to use these for a tournament.  This curious and pretty game has proved very popular, since we tried it a few years ago and we are looking forward to teaching it to a complete new group.

3. The Goblin Cave is our own invention that we designed for the Con+2 Convention last year.  It's a light RPG, where people have a limited time to kill as many goblins as they can, without being killed themselves. It's ideal for RPG newcomers and helps develop their imagination

4. Lastly we'll choose a complex game with a larger number of players, mainly for the older youth - perhaps Nations or Power Grid - something challenging to test their brainpower!  Watch this space for the final decision!

Developments this Year

We like to see the experience for the attendees at the Convention improve each year.  As a grassroots organisation, we work to maximise the benefit of the income we receive each year, so that it provides long-lasting impact, not just for the duration of the Convention.

Our hosting of the Convention has been very basic up until now and so this year we want to put in some improvements this year:

• Mattresses to add to the mats we used last year for sleeping
• Mosquito nets to protect from malaria
• A new security hut to ensure the security guard is housed properly.  The hut burned down in the excessive heat last year.  This year's will be fire-proof.
• Improved solar power system to enable use of computers and film projectors during the Convention.  Last year's provided just light in the evenings for us
• More tables and chairs to ensure that we can play games in more comfortable situations

All equipment left over from the Convention will be utilised in the new Chrysalis Secondary School project, which will host the event next year, as there will be much more space there.  Currently we are limited to 150 people sleeping at one time.

This Year's Budget

The breakdown for this year's event is as follows:

Pre- and post Convention visits to the clubs - £500

Food for all participants throughout the Convention (150 visitors) - £800

Transport for club members and HQ to Koro - £900

Mattresses and bedding inc. mosquito nets - £850

Security Hut - £400

Improved solar power - £400

Tables and chairs - £500

Shipping of games to Uganda - £300

Contingency - £500

TOTAL - £5150

Some highlights from the 2019 Convention

Seven Wonders

Photosynthesis

Bean Trader

The badges our trainers wear

Airships

The Attendees under this year's banner

Janet teaching Pelaponnes

Zooloretto

Ingenious

Midnight Party

New England

Rhino Hero Battles

Queendomino

Zicke Zacke HuhnerKacke

For more photos go to our Facebook Page and check recent recent photo albums.

This project successfully funded on 17th April 2020