Virtual GridCon 2 and Lobstercon 20 - https://www.facebook.com/events/425188371814021 - are taking place together between 26th and 30th November 2020.  Feel free to visit the link above to find out more information about how to participate in this year's virtual events.  Chrysalis Youth Empowerment Network is the chosen charity for this event.

Lobstercon can be found also at http://www.lobstercon.co.uk

Gridcon can be found at http://www.gridcon.co.uk

Earlier this year Paul Grogan from Gaming Rules held Virtual GridCon, a games convention which raised money for CYEN's Gamechangers programme, which supports rural children with boardgaming and other activities.  It was especially valuable this year, as millions of children were suffering in lockdown in the remotest parts of Northern Uganda and we were able to visit every one of our rural beneficiaries and games clubs, support them with new games and encourage them to come together within the terms of the lockdown and play games.

In the slum areas of Kampala, we have been supporting families that lost their jobs during the lockdown, providing lunch for their children and essentials for their families for five months this year, as well as boardgaming activities.

While Uganda has few cases of the virus, cases are growing and the slum areas are most at risk, as many live there with medical conditions and children are very vulnerable to changing circumstances as many live day to day on what their parents can earn on that day.  We have discovered hundreds of children struggling to find food to eat and many are going on the streets looking for scrap metal to sell to buy food, which can be very dangerous for them.

In a normal year Chrysalis trains youth to be social entrepreneurs, but this year we have shifted our focus and we have been fortunate enough to have been able to raise enough money to build a secondary school, though we are still short on some buildings - a weekend activities centre and library, which will be the hub for our boardgaming, a health centre and computer lab.  

This fundraiser is to help support these developments, helping to improve the facilities for what we believe will become one of Uganda's most innovative and effective schools.

We hope that Virtual GridCon 2 and Lobstercon 20 are a great success and people are able to share at least some of the atmosphere of a face to face convention.  We are lucky enough to be able to play our boardgames face to face here in Uganda and we hope that everyone abroad can soon return to this once the vaccines have been able to circulate in 2021.