News

Rwanda Week 1 – 23.04.2007

We’ve been a week in Kigali now, and after several hectic days of meetings (mostly with Celestin of the Rwandan Rugby Federation, but also an unexpected cup of tea with the British Ambassador) we finally saw some rugby!

 
We attended a very muddy training session with a club team in Kigali and were impressed with the numbers at training and commitment to full contact!  Luckily our arrival co-incided with the start of the 2007 League and this weekend we travelled to Butare for Deena to referee the University team, The Grizzlies, v Kigali based team, Lion De Fer. A close encounter for the first 40 mins saw many attacking raids from both sides repelled with courageous defence. Eventually sheer weight of possession from set piece saw the Lions score 3 un-answered tries. The ref also survived despite the heat, altitude and well concealed line markings!

 
We are now dressed in our ‘smart’ clothes (mostly donated from the generous League girls!) as we head to a meeting with the Minister of Sport. We hope he will take an interest in our three month plan and assist us to promote rugby.

Arrival in Rwanda 18.04.2007

Deena, Susie and Spire Road

Emma, Lindsay and Main Street (they’re not that big!)
The captain on the run
Prize giving ceremony
The ChampsHere are some more photos from the end of the tour. We are still reflecting on the experience of coaching about 700 kids in 5 days. The final tournament was an amazing success and the skill levels after such a short time suprised us all!
The yellow team is Main Street, coached by Myself and Lindsay. Shame we didn’t do so well ourselves in the Kampala 7s tournament!
We really miss our fellow tourers and felt quite lonely going to get the bus to Rwanda on Monday morning. This soon passed as the bus was cancelled and we were busy changing our travel plans! We eventually caught the bus yesterday (Tuesday) which left an hour and a half late and was delayed near the border with a busted hosepipe. It ended up with a dash for the border before it closed and a late arrival in Kigali at 9pm. Luckily there was a nice enough hotel 100m away for us to recover from the excitment of the journey!
We hope to meet up with the Rwanda Rugby Federation tomorrow and get coaching ASAP.
Some photos of the new, improved Kigali to follow.
Brilliant clearing out by the League Gals!
On the run from the Kenyans!
Lovely try Kirst!

The End of the Tour – 15.04.2007


Wow, what a hectic week!

We are finally at the end of the TRDT tour to Uganda and it has been great!

The week involved two sessions of coaching a day in various schools.

The coaching experience was tiring but very rewarding. All the kids were training in full school uniform (including leather shoes) and picked up the skills very quickly.

The week culminated in a tournament at Junja Rugby club (AKA our campsite) and was a massive success. There were 8 teams involved, each wearing excellent new kit and were highly competetive. It was amazing what was acheived with a relatively short space of time and large numbers of kids compared to limited resources. This has really given us a shot in the arm and shown us what is possible. We hope to have inspired a passion for rugby which will long continue in these children.

We couldn’t bask in the glory of this experence for too long as we were rushing back to Kampala the next day to participate in a 7s tournament. Oh what an experience-us and 10 Great Britain rugby league girls playing against seasoned African 7s experts! We won the collisions and got hammered on the counter attack with pace! A great day none the less!

Tomorrow, we are on the bus and into Rwanda…(only a short 8 hour hop!)

Emma and Deena

Tag Rugby Development Trust Tour to Uganda – 15.04.2007

Hello,

Deena and I had been relaxing in Uganda for a week when last Friday we were joined by a team of female volunteers Uganda for a Tag Rugby development Trust Tour. Most of the volunteers were representative rugby league players and a great bunch of girls.
This is a charity whom we’ve been working with and we decided to join them on a tour to see what they get up to. (Check outwww.tagrugbytours.com for more info)
This was a slightly shorter Tour than they usually run with just one weeks coaching primary school children and building up to the volunteers (us included), competing in an International womens 7’s Tournament in Kampala as a finale this coming weekend.After a couple of days acclimatising (& white water rafting down the Nile which was an extreme method of team bonding) the Tag coaching started for real and it was a hectic start, even for those of us who have coached in Africa before. In the first school we encountered 140 enthusastic children.

Emma

Game SensePlayerRaft groupRaft

Rwanda Update

16/09/2013 Coming Shortly FoRR National Schools Finals Tournament  –

Regional teams announced:
To all of those people who have donated money directly or through our awesome fundraising folks lately. This is what your money went towards:

WE TAKE CARE of the transport for all of the teams listed below to travel to Kigali so they can compete in the Rwandan schools’ national final. The players, teachers and coaches’ transport plus resources for the day of rugby all get taken care of by FoRR. You can see exactly where your money is in action and creating chances for these guys to play. We should also mention that we took care of the 7 regional tournaments in the lead up and selection series as well. More than 40 school teams got the chance to vie for the national title. Can’t wait to see who comes out on top of the whole competition….
Thank you so much!!

DESIGNATION
1.Transport (ET MUKINGI-Ruhango)
2.Transport (ACEJ KARAMA- Muhanga)
3.Transport (E.S MULINDI-Gicumbi)
4. Transport (E.S APEMU RULI-Gakenke)
5.Transport (EAV KABUTARE-Huye)
6.Transport (Lycee APICUR-Musanze
7.Transport(ISETAR –RUNDA-Kamonyi)

Follow face book to watch the lead up and tournament unfold.
https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofRwandanRugby

21/08/2013 FoRR wins a 2013 OPSCAR

FoRR has been lucky enough to be selected as one of three charities by the Accenture Operations Community in their annual OPSCAR vote. Last year Accenture employees helped the Operations Community raise almost £15k for very worthwhile causes. They actively seek to recognise outstanding charities that represent great causes and then seek to support them with a financial contribution. FoRR hopes to continue delivering practical assistance to the rural and youth communities in Rwanda and is delighted to have been recognised through this inspiring program.