Welling School Tag Rugby Tour of Uganda 2015

On June 27th 2015, 13 Students and 5 Staff from Welling School will head for Uganda to coach some of the most underpriveleged children from government schools and orphanages, on how to play the game of Tag Rugby. The Students have spent over a year raising money to fund the project themselves. Over £20,000 has been raised so far! As well as coaching the children in Uganda they will also be training the School Staff and leave enough equipment and resources for the schools to continue playing and enjoying the game. They will also undertake a community project where they will help to make improvements to an impoverished village school. Donations can be made using this 'justgiving' link :


https://www.justgiving.com/wellinginuganda


You can follow their progress through this Blog. Thank you for your interest.

Thursday 9 July 2015

Thursday 9th July: Pre tournament day

Today was the last day of training with our schools before the second tournament of the tour which is taking place at the orphanage where we are staying . Twenty children in each team had to be whittled down to ten,which involved some difficult conversations with those not selected.Brandon is confident he has a winning team.Most of the children being coached this week have not played tag before, so to get them to participate in a tournament within a week is a tremendous achievement for all the students .
The community project finished today with much pomp and ceremony.Having completed the construction of the extra classroom and painted the front and side we arrived today and were asked by the headteacher to paint the rear of it which is not visible from the road.We declined and instead painted the front of the main school building which IS visible from the road. Amy and Olivia had spent a couple of days designing and painting a new school sign. A kit bag of tag rugby kit was handed to the headteacher who then ceremoniously cut a ribbon (which mysteriously appeared from Miss Faragher' s rucksack)band thanked everyone for their hard work over the week. I am positive that everyone thoroughly enjoyed their time on this project and the before and after photos are very impressive.
The light hearted banter between students and staff which had gone on all tour reached a climax this evening with the students taking on teachers and adult volunteers in a game of volleyball. Much hype preceded the game with Aaron being particular vocal in his prematch confidence.Mr Brown had analysed the opposition in great detail and came to the conclusion that the teachers had the edge. Aaron was targeted as a possible weak link but played well throughout. Regretably the teachers put in a shocking performance and lost 2-0. The students were cock- a - hoop and Miss Faragher is
looking into booking some volleyball lessons! Injury prone Mr Loziou (finger nail and toe nail) survived the encounter without further incident! 

The evening finished with a meal with our host families (consisting of a mother and 9 or 10 children of various ages). It was a delightful experience with the children gradually growing in confidence as the evening progressed. It finished with all the children singing a medley of gospel songs- truly memorable.
Tournament day tomorrow - bring it on , good luck Brandon.

Richard Orpin







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