Origins

The Introduction of Woodball to Uganda and Africa

It was during the conference sitting of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) General Assembly in Dubai in March 2006 that Ndejje University Sports Tutor Paul Mark Kayongo and his counterpart at Makerere University, Penina Kabenge mooted the idea of introducing the woodball sport in Uganda and Africa. The idea germinated from the original founder of the sport Prof. Ming-Hui Weng who invented woodball in 1990 in Taipei City, Taiwan.
Thereafter Uganda secured equipment to kick-start the project while attending the China Woodball Open Championships in April 2006 culminating into Ndejje and Makerere Universities becoming the pioneers of the sport in Uganda and in Africa.
Kayongo went a step ahead to take the bull by the horns and with technical knowledge about the sport acquired from Dubai and Ningbo to practically introduce woodball in the country initially through a few universities.
And since then, Ndejje University has spearheaded the spread of the sport to all universities in the country, schools, corporate world and Uganda being the pioneers in Africa took on the lead to spread it to the rest on the African continent.
Noting how Uganda was fast spreading the sport like wild fire, the International Woodball Federation (IWbF) later sent a high powered delegation of two Chinese officials, Professor Huang Thinyun and federation’s General Secretary Sean Weng to officially launch the new sport in Africa and also conduct a course to introduce the sport to all participants on June 21, 2006.
Uganda later became the launching pad for Africa continent with over five countries invited to attend the inaugural IWbF woodball workshop namely Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and Burundi among others.
The innovative Ndejje University in January 2007 went a step ahead to develop a local industry of producing affordable woodball equipment for the local consumption with locally available timber from “Omunandejje” trees. The technology made easy, low production costs and the availability of local.