To commemorate this year’s International Chess Day (20th July, 2022), here’s the full transcript of the zoom discussion by the NETISM Author and the Convener of Chess in Slums, Africa.

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): So, it’s nice to have you on board, you know!

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): Yeah! Same here!

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): So, within 20 minutes, I think we can achieve a lot.

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): Ahh! Sure! Sure!

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): So!

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): So!

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): I’ll start with an introductory message, then the agenda of the day! Go! Hello viewers out there, my name is Jawolusi Oluwaseun (The NETISM Author) and here with me today is the Convener, and the Founder of the famous Chess in Slums, Africa, he goes by the name Mr. Tunde Onakoya, okay! Master! Chess Master Tunde Onakoya, Right? (Smiles) Alright! So… and…

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): You know…

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): We know! You are a Chess Master, I’ve read through your profile online; at least, I’ve seen some couple of your games! You know… games you’ve played! You are actually a great Chess player. And you are very good at Blitz! I know! Blitz! Fast Games!

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): Yes…

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): I know that one. (smiles)

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): I’m not a good Chess player, I’m just a good speed Chess player now. I’ve stopped being a good Chess player a while ago… (smiles) Now I just play Blitz!

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): Alright! So! hmmm! I’m quite sure that we all know why we are here today, like, hmm! To commemorate the International Chess Day in such a grand style. So, straight to the fact, we have a 2-point agenda for today’s event, five - five minutes for each of the agenda.
The first is the Discourse of Chess, that is; how to foster a Chess-based Development in Nigeria, by the perspective of it being a collective responsibility.
And secondly, reviewing the hybrid book, that is the Nigerian Chess Book in Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba Languages.
So! Now! The first item on our agenda today; talking about the concept of Chess, how it could be maximized for edu-social inclusion in Nigeria, and in Africa at large. Sir, far and near, we’ve seen your great work in Lagos, hmmm! with eyes, we’ve have seen it, and hears have heard what you’ve done. Now, the question is that; how can we recreate this success story in other geopolitical zones of Nigeria? That is actually the strategy right now! So! I’m putting it to you right now! So! What’s the strategy in place? What do you have as a game-plan on how to recreate the success story using Chess to give hope to the hopeless, you know, changing the narratives of the society via Chess! And hmmmm! You know sometimes ago, I saw some of your Chess students graduated from that Chess school, and they went to an ICT Academy, you know! It’s quite inspiring! These are the kind of things we want in our dear country – Nigeria, so, within the next two-three minutes, can you just tell us how you’ve planned to get a lot of Nation-builders on board, so that we can recreate this success story in other geo-political zones of Nigeria? I’ve done my own part, at least, I wrote a book, you know! A localized Chess Education Book. So! How do you want to come on board with respect to that Sir?

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): Alright! Thank you Mr. Seun. And! Hmmm! First of all, I will like to commend your contribution to the Chess, because, hmmm! One thing that I think is very important in any work that advocates for people is; you have to show that representation is very crucial, right! people have to feel that; oh! When I see this, this person looks like me, this person speaks like me, so being able to breakdown the complexities of Chess in a way that we can also consume it here at the local level, you know, and in our own local context; in Yoruba, in Igbo and Hausa, it’s very important, and hmmm! So, once again, I will like to commend your great work! Hmmm! Weldone! So, to answer your question, for Chess in Slums, Africa, we have a vision, right! That vision is to spread the gift of Chess to a million children across Africa, you know; in slum communities over the next decade, and hmmm… this vision is driven by the understanding that Chess is beyond just a cognitive benefit, right… it helps children to develop a lot of important skills, from spatial reasoning, critical thinking, creativity, you know… it gives them an identity. And when I say an identity, what I mean is; hmmm! Chess is a highly cerebral game, right! And hmmm! For children in slums to be playing Chess - the children in poverty… it almost doesn’t make sense, (smiles). Like how? Like Chess is a game mostly for the elites, it is played at a very professional level, right! But being able to like disrupt that understanding that children in slums cannot be able to be intellectually inclined was what led us to this, it was the idea, it was the mindset behind Chess in Slums; to help people understand that; see! children in slums can also be very intellectually inclined; you can also do something that has this prestige all over the world, and they can gain mastery of it. And when you do that, right… they now have a new identity; it’s not just the old narratives, that, oh! They are poor, or they look saddened kinda in a way, or their background. You now only judge them with the premise of what they have the ability to do. Right! So! Chess is an expression of that! And hmmm! We want to secure this success story and we want to make sure that; in these impoverished communities, every child is given the gift of Chess, because it is going to give them a new identity, and when people see that potential that they have, you know! The conversation is now centered around what they can do. Right! And hmmm! One important strategy that we have in place is to be able to work with other people, right… to leverage partnerships in places, right… institutions, schools, communities, you know… to leverage partnerships with these people; people there and places to be able to scale, because, we can’t exactly be present everywhere, and to also develop programs, and drive them with technology, right! Because without technology, it will be hard to really scale, right! And an example was when we went to Burkina Faso, right! There was that language barrier, but hmmm! I think the beautiful thing about Chess is that it can be translated to any kind of language. So, while we set up the academy, then, we were there for 2-weeks, so, at the end we were able to get like 40 laptops for the children, and we helped them install the Chess software, and we created accounts for them. The Chess program that we started has about 20 children, it has grown to almost 200 children now. Simply on a weekly basis! So! It’s this model that we really want to adopt, yea… and hmmm! replicate, you know! codify this model and replicate it across the world, not just in Nigeria, but in other African countries as well.

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): Whao! Sir, you’ve said it all, you’ve said it all. So, let’s move to the next agenda, talking about the multilingual book. You talked about technology, you know! Maximizing technology for Chess education, so! Let’s talk about the role of a localized education, like! Impacting these kids with Chess knowledge via their mother-tongue, how do you think technology could play a pivotal role in that instance.

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): You know, recently, because we are trying to really remodel our programs at Chess in Slums, we included basic literacy, right! Hmmm! The reason why we did this is because; now, there is a silent problem that is plaguing Africa, hmm! Nigeria and Africa! hmm! People are not really paying attention to the grassroots, we know that poverty is a major roadblock, right! But, we don’t understand how it will affect children – the future of our country, of our continent! We don’t really understand how it affects them, you know! Intimately! Now! There are over 40,000,000 Children in Africa that cannot read and write. The thing about Chess is; when you start playing, right! You are going to learn about board coordinates, so, I remember in Makoko, some of the Children, because they’ve got to play Chess, that was the first opportunity they got to speak English, because they have to learn the alphabets, like, that was the very first time they ever got to speak English language, so, Chess was their first language and it gave them access to basic literacy. Alright! So! Now! The thing about language is; you want to teach a child English, right! But to be able to teach that child – even if it is A B C, they need to be able to understand it in their own language first, so, those parallels, they are very important, so, one thing about using technology, we will be partnering with another organization, they built this technology called the magic pen, when you point the pen to a word or to an alphabet, it will tell you the word in the language whether in Hausa, in Yoruba, or in Igbo…

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): Whao!

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): …it will be able to tell you the English pronunciation and meaning, so, I mean, technology like that is very useful, right! because it gives modern context and it helps to be able to now pass-on knowledge to that child, right! Because, before they can understand anything in English, they need to understand it in their own local context too. So, I mean, it’s easier to teach that way, right! Because Chess is a game with lot of complex terminologies, imagine telling a child who has never known the 4-walls of a classroom that a Rook moves vertically and horizontally, he will just be looking at you like this… these are things I had to google when we wanted to start Chess in Slums, because we were working with out-of-school children who had never been to school before, so, I used to google silly things like; How to teach Chess in Yoruba, how to…. Because, “Yoruba mi o dan moran…” so, I’d wanted to be able to like connect them on a personal level and be able to break it down to their own levels of assimilation. And, I mean, it worked that way, chess is a very visual game, practical, and instead of using grammar, grammar, I was like: okay, waa se eleyi, eleyi waa gbe wa bayi, so, being able to mix in something that they were comfortable with and used to not only help them to better understand, but also gives them access to now learn even more.

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): …alright! Thanks! In fact! You’ve said it all! Now, let’s talk about this multilingual book, it’s kind of hybrid, multipurpose, and it’s being driven by web applications; multilingual web application in Hausa, that is; www.chessinhausa.com, that’s for the Hausa version, now, we have www.chessinigbo.com, that’s the Igbo version, and we have all the basic Chess knowledge necessary for any kid to learn, we also have www.chessinyoruba.com, I think these would be helpful, right, in this process?

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): yea…

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): And also, the multilingual book is presently on Amazon Kindle Store, right! So to say! However, we still need to do a lot of works, like, I have this vision to at least get a million copy across to each Nigerian State, it’s possible! I always say something that a Child who understands the concept of Chess can excel in any field of study. So, Chess for out-of-school kids can serve as a model of knowledge-supplement, a new model of education, and even beyond this scope of Chess of a thing, this initiative can be adopted as a Language-Learning Technology, so to say! So! What’s your plan? This Nigerian Chess book in Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba Languages, how do we move it forward, how do we proliferate it across Nigeria? so that it could be beneficial… We have few more minutes… like hmmm! 5 more minutes to round up this interactive session and I’m sure we gonna see some other time to talk on how to work things out, and thanks a lot for your online activities sideways, so, please, back to the question…

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): Alright, thank you very much Mr. Seun. So, I think to just keep it short, I think one thing that will be very beneficial to you as the creator of this material is for us to like work out a partnership, right! Because! Me, I’m already like looking up to scale to the North, to the Eastern part and this will be very useful for us, because I don’t speak Igbo, I don’t speak Hausa, having a material like this will help us to be able to engage the community volunteers even better, because, when they see this, they will be able to easily understand their task description and help us with teaching children, so, I think leveraging this partnership and making sure like through our programs we can get this resource to children and teachers as many as possible is one way to go about it, right! And hmmm! I mean, of course, because of the kinds of communities we work with, this is a very important asset to be able to like break that language barrier, you know, that first language barrier in teaching the children, so, we will definitely like to like work with you and make sure we can get this to as many children as possible, so, that definitely will be one important way, and another way will be to like work with schools, right! I mean, beyond reasonable doubt, Chess is an important educational resource material, so I think the best way is to work with schools, academic institutions, you know, private schools, public schools, and we can get it to as many children as possible, so, and, maybe, if the government now decide to add it to the curriculum at some point, I think that will be amazing, and that would work too.

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): Alright, you’ve just said something right now; “Government adding Chess to the curriculum” so to say! it is quite perfect. We gonna work on that!
So, at this point, on a conclusive note, Mr. Tunde Onakoya, I really want to appreciate your presence…

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): thank you!

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): I really wanna appreciate your… you know… with respect to your track records; building capacities in Nigeria, I really wanna thank you for all you’ve been doing; more strength! And I really want you to know that we are doing this for Nigeria, we are doing this for Africa, and we are doing this to make the world a better living-place; knowing fully well that; “Education is the backbone of development.”

THE SPECIAL GUEST (Tunde): Yes! It is! Thank you very much Mr. Jawolusy, and hmmm! Yea! I’ll be happy to support in any capacity. Thank you.

THE FACILITATOR (Seun): thanks a lot, I really appreciate your time. Thanks.

Bye!

So you work with Tunde Onakoya?

Nice one.


@Seniorwriter

Seniorwriter:
So you work with Tunde Onakoya?
Nice one.
@Seniorwriter

Tunde has set a notable landmark for Chess development in Nigeria, and in Africa at large, think about it... So, there's no way i could have unveiled such a huge platform without him coming on board. You can call that homage! Cheers!

#InternationalChessDay