Chrysalis is an organisation that trains young people to be social entrepreneurs and changemakers and we have found boardgames one of the most useful tools to identify potential changemakers and teach them about global issues and the outside world in general.

We at Chrysalis founded the Uganda Village Boardgame Convention in 2017, an event that expanded during 2018 and 2019 to over 200 children participating from some of the remotest parts of Northern Uganda.  In 2020 we were set to run our biggest event yet at the newly-built Chrysalis Secondary School, but COVID-19 struck and immediately travel was completely restricted and we had to cancel the event, leaving us to board game only with residents living at our centres

During the lengthy lockdown period in Uganda during 2020 and 2021, board games have proved hugely popular at our centres in Kampala and Omoro.  However, only recently have we been able to open up our facilities in a limited way to work with outsiders and thus we want to enable a small number of avid boardgamers (about 25), who attended previous conventions to take part in the Boot Camp.

We'll be teaching them some of the hardest games, from Mombasa to Twilight Imperium, Time Stories to Teotihuacan, Dune to CO2 and Ghost Stories to Gates of Loyang.  We have a library of more than 200 games here at Chrysalis and we try our best to teach every game we have to our keen groups of boardgamers.  In this Bootcamp, we'll be challenging all the kids (aged 11-16) to stretch themselves to learn games, which they have considered too difficult before.

Our school is right in the sticks, but we have solar power,  so we can play morning noon and night, though we expect our participants to also be active in our afternoon athletics programmes we offer to all local children.  During the fortnight we may add or subtract children, if they cannot stay for the whole two weeks.

Donated money will go to the following:

- Food for all the participants, who will stay at the school for a period of around two weeks

- Some beds and bedding

- Transport for the children to come

- Purchase of some tables- 

- COVID-19 precautions and masks

- Living needs for our visitors

Next year we hope to have the full convention again and we can host at least 250 on this site and people around the world will also be able to attend, teach the kids some games and learn some themselves.  We'll also be bringing back our Regional Omweso tournament, which was so popular at previous conventions.

Finally, it is hoped that school will be restarting this October, so this will be the last chance for a while that the kids can enjoy the boardgames in the same way.  We will rejoice with them, though when they are back at school!