A knight’s tale: How chess is keeping children off the streets in Nigeria

• Chess is getting used as a weapon towards medication, crime and poverty in Nigeria.
• Chess in Slums Africa has influenced over a thousand kids. 
• The goal is to achieve all corners of Africa and to assist a minimum of one million kids within the subsequent 5 years.

Slum communities in Nigeria are like a snake pit, the place one fights for territory from as early as pre-teen years.

Confronted with social ills, similar to poverty and homelessness, there’s hardly an escape route for youngsters. Normally, they by no means attain their full potential as they’re slowly drawn into a lifetime of crime, medication and prostitution.

It might have been the case for Babatunde “Tunde” Onakoya, 28, who on the age of 10 was more likely to go down the identical path that will result in self-destruction.

However, as he sat at a barber store sooner or later, a person gave him a chess set.

The reward would preserve him busy and away from the flawed path.

“This single motion opened doorways for Tunde. He went on to develop into the tenth highest-rated chess participant in Nigeria,” stated Samuel Awobajo, a good friend of Tunde and his enterprise accomplice.

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In a rustic the place boys who escape poverty largely do it via soccer, with names similar to Odion Ighalo, Anthony Nwakaeme, and Emmanuel Emenike, to call a number of, Tunde took a novel route.

Since September 2018, he has been serving to children, in conditions much like his, in one of the best ways he knew – the chess board.

“Tunde imagined a world the place kids have the chance to achieve their full potential and so they do not should drop out of faculty to proceed the cycle of poverty. The thought of Chess in Slums Africa was conceived,” stated Awobajo.

By way of Chess in Slums Africa, an initiative to supply educating and mentorship to underprivileged children, Tunde and his crew have managed to maintain kids at school, away from youngster labour, and to assist reconfigure their mindsets.

“Ours is to advertise studying via chess schooling with service, philanthropy and mentorship,” stated Awobajo, who can be the operations supervisor of Chess in Slums Africa.

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“Chess has been perceived to be the sport of the elites, however Chess in Slums Africa is altering this narrative. We’re creating a brand new narrative, the place each human, no matter their background, can sit on the identical desk with one thing in widespread.

“We’re utilizing chess to interrupt that cycle of poverty and illiteracy in slum communities and we’re creating a brand new story, the place the Nigerian youngster can develop into no matter he places his thoughts to due to the reward of chess.”

In its profile, Chess in Slums Africa has 4 fundamental goals – abilities acquisition, mentorship, serving to children with scholarship alternatives, and chess schooling.

The highway is bumpy, so it takes so much to alter mindsets.

“One nice problem we confronted was in Oshodi when chess was launched to kids residing beneath the bridge. We had kids who had been already abusing medication and becoming a member of gangs from as early as 11 years outdated. Oshodi is likely one of the most averted locations in Lagos, particularly at evening due to the violence that goes on there,” stated Awobajo.

Nonetheless, since 2018, over 1 000 kids’s lives have been influenced by chess.

“Thus far, Chess in Slums Africa has labored with over 1 000 kids – between the ages of seven and 18 – in several communities and we want to attain a million kids within the subsequent 5 years,” he stated.

Due to the nice work, Chess in Slums Africa has gained recognition and a focus from worldwide media and in addition partnered with the Canadian Excessive Fee.

Now they’re calling for worldwide ambassadors, “individuals who can use their voices and platforms to inform the gorgeous tales of those kids and break the cycle of poverty”.

Exterior Nigeria, it has unfold into Kaya, Burkina Faso, as a part of their imaginative and prescient to achieve each nook of Africa sooner or later.

The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Basis. The tales produced via the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements which may be contained herein don’t mirror these of the Hanns Seidel Basis.

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