ChessKid Comes to Chess in Slums

A few months ago, Chess in Slums caught our attention after making quite a stir online.

The Chess in Slums story begins with Tunde Onakoya, "a chess board and a pocketful of dreams." Onakoya ventured into the slums of Majidun Ikorodu Lagos, Nigeria, with a mission to bring chess to vulnerable children living in slum communities. This, he thought, was a way to promote learning and enhance intellectual development for children in need. Most of them could not afford to go to school.

Chess in Slums is a program that teaches chess to children without access to education, as a means of giving them mentorship, community, and an academic advantage.

"The Chess in Slums initiative carries a powerful vision to promote chess education across the African continent. It is said that talent is universal but opportunity isn't.

This is not just about chess and its amazing benefits--this is also about rekindling the hopes and dreams of the African child." - Tunde Onakoya, CIS founder

After the story of one of his students (Basirat, pictured above) went viral, a sponsor reached out to support her through school. Thus, the Chess in Slums movement was birthed. We knew we had to help!

ChessKid will be partnering with Chess in Slums to bring greater resources and awareness to the initiative. Our goal is to bring more mentors, scholarships, and infrastructure for learning chess online to the children and community of CIS. Said Tunde,

"With this incredible partnership with ChessKid, we can expand our horizons and give the children living in remote communities access to the best training resource to help them become chess champions. This also affords them the opportunity to engage the use of technology and the internet to connect to the world beyond the confines of their community."

We are so excited to embark on this journey, and we hope you follow along with us. Stay tuned for more updates and be sure to follow Chess in Slums here: