Near Lagos, Nigeria, a former chess champion teaches slum children. He organizes chess competitions and the strongest can hope to get scholarships out of poverty.
In Makoko, above Lagos, Nigeria, at least 250,000 people live in extreme poverty in the largest slum on stilts. But in recent weeks, children from the favela have been visited by Tunde Onakoya, founder of the NGO “Xadrez na Favela”, and other volunteers who come to teach them how to play chess. This is the new passion of these young people. Every weekend, they work out their strategy with the professor, a high-level player himself from a slum.
“I thought to myself that if I could teach chess to slum children, the way they are seen by everyone would change. Instead of seeing them just as poor children, you would see that they have great intellectual abilities.”, Explain Tunde Onakoya. He does not intend to make them champions, but only to give them structure and education. Children play against each other. A 15-year-old girl feels that chess has already started to change her life.
