Stoke Newington resident Lucy, a photographer at the N16 Fringe, visited Uganda as a volunteer earlier this year. Here is the reason why.

In May this year I was lucky enough to be part of an eightstrong team of volunteers whose aim was to introduce Tag Rugby to four schools in the Bushenyi district in rural Uganda, East Africa. You may ask, 'Why Tag Rugby in Uganda?' and you wouldn't be the first to raise the question.

The game is designed as a basic introduction to the full contact sport. Players wear tags around their waists and a 'tackle' is made when one of these tags is pulled off. Tries are scored in the same way but there are no scrums, rucks or mauls etc. Tag Rugby is played in many clubs and schools in the UK.

The idea for this expedition was conceived after a previous expedition in 2002 to the Mbale district in the East of Uganda. The volunteers who taught Tag Rugby then, agreed that the game provided a valuable opportunity for the school children to learn a new activity, develop team-based skills and was not excessively equipment hungry and so was relatively easy to sustain locally.

Rugby is not new to Uganda. The 1950s and 1960s saw Uganda as one of the strongest rugby forces in East Africa. However, because of the large number of expatriates involved in playing the game, Ugandan independence changed things dramatically. The new Ugandan government refused to support the habits of former colonialists and so began the game's 20-year hibernation. However, the 1990s saw a return of the game and in 2001/2 Rugby was the fastest growing sport in Uganda.

Kampala (the Ugandan capital) now boasts a successful men's team but an even more successful women's team. Two members of the women's squad and one from the men's, joined us in the Bushenyi district as volunteer coaches. We began teaching in the classrooms where most of the children experienced their first contact with a rugby ball. We then progressed to the field where it soon became clear that almost all of the children
possessed a natural athleticism that we all admired. Nine days of coaching later, the four
schools fielded eight teams of ten in a village Tag Rugby Tournament, attended by many
Ugandan officials and hundreds of villagers.

We left enough Tags, cones and balls for the schools to carry on playing after we left.
Jude, Agnes and Jose, the three volunteers from Kampala, along with the Ugandan RFU
Development Officer, will revisit the schools later in the year to monitor progress. Another expedition is planned for 2005.
Any N16 readers with a passion for rugby who would like to be involved next year should
visit martin@.xcl.info for more information.