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You know or might have heard of @Tunde_OD (Tunde Onakoya) and the wonders, his project, Chess in Slums are doing. But how well do you know Tunde Onakoya?

Tunde grew up in Eko Lagos, his father was a spare parts seller while his mother was a petty trader.

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He has a brother who is two years younger than him. During his teenage years, he lived in a slum community called Isale Odo in Ikorodu. It was at Ikorodu that things got extra hard for his father.

Tunde's father was initially an owner of a danfo which he lent to other drivers
and also drove occasionally...he worked as a conductor as well in the same danfo and things eventually became very hard for them after the danfo encountered several problems and was no longer a source of income for his family.

Tunde couldn't go to secondary school because his younger brother was still in primary school and his parents were too poor to afford both of their school fees. They also didn't want Tunde to attend a public school due to how it was notorious for their poor standards and most importantly, Cultism. While his mates were in Jss2, Tunde was at home and it was at this point he found chess.

He learnt about chess at his local barber's shop. Whenever he went there to play PS1, he noticed his barber usually bring the board out and play with his (the barber's)friends. He saw the way the chess pieces were carved
and he instantly loved it. He started begging the barber to teach him how to play but he ignored him. Eventually, Tunde learnt how to play and the rules of the game by watching the barber and his friends while they played.
Tunde's mother became tired of seeing him at home, being idle..so she approached an expensive school and offered to work for them while her son attended their school. His mother worked there for six years and resigned on the day he wrote his final WAEC paper. Life in school was tough for Tunde at first, he could barely speak english due to his environment back at home and how they mostly conversed in Yoruba Eventually, his classmates rubbed off on him and he learnt how to speak English well and also started doing really well in school.

Fortunately, the secondary school had an active chess club and that was where Tunde perfected his skills and by Jss2, he won his frist trophy in the school. He came third in the chess tournament organized in the school and he saw his dad cry while he was being celebrated. His father was proud of him, a child who couldn't speak english yesterday, came third in a chess tournament in school. It boosted his self esteem and from that moment, chess changed his life.

He started playing chess and representing his school in external tournaments. He travelled for competitions and competed with other prestigious schools including King's college. His travels helped expose him to the world and brought him out more often from the slums of Ikorodu. He was made the senior prefect in his senior year in Secondary school.
His father had to sell his car for Tunde to write his WAEC and after he graduated,
he could not enter school for two years. He tried entering UNILAG but missed the school's JAMB cutoff mark by one point. It was one of his darkest days but he tried again next year, this time around in LASU. He successfully got the admission but unfortunately, this was the period LASU increased their school fees from #25,000 to #250,000. His parents didn't have the money so Tunde lost the admission that year. At this point, he had given up, he hated everyone,everything,he even h@ted God and hated his family for being poor.His mates were already in school, some in private universities, some in abroad, whereas he that was the senior prefect,was still at home. His friends would come back home and tell him stories about their school and life there and he couldn't do anything but listen.This was painful and he knew his parents literally
couldn't do anything to help the situation.

He gave up on going to school and started learning how to repair phones. One day, his mother came back home with a form from Yaba College of Technology and said one of her friends recommended the school for her.
He hated it and didn't even listen to her, he did not wanted to attend a polytechnic...but after his mother's begging and persistence, he tried it out and that was how he ended in Yabatech. It was here his fortunes changed.

Tunde had lost interest and stopped playing chess for years due to the admission issues and trying to make ends meet. While in school, he was passing through sports complex in Yabatech when he saw a chess room. He made enquires and became an active member of the chess group once again.He later joined the college team and at this point, he stopped paying for his school fees and accommodation fees.

He represented the school at the Nigerian Polytechnic games association tournament and they won all the gold medals,he was also a double gold medalist and went on to win the gold medal at RCCG chess championship.
You might be wondering how he got to be so good in chess. According to Tunde, he was obsessed with the game, he lived, eat, sleep, dream and breathe chess. All his friends were chess players and they were always playing against each other. He played chess from morning till night, even missed classes and a few tests because of the game.

Fortunately,chess made his photographic memory so good that he easily crammed while reading and passed his exams.His parents weren't giving him any allowance,so he survived on his winnings from chess tournaments. He won the National friends of chess, Chevron chess open and was ranked the 13th best player in chess in Nigeria.

According to Tunde, not entering UNILAG was one of his darkest moments but assuming if he had gone there, he wouldn't have been able to do all he can do now with chess.
Yabatech changed his life. He later graduated from Yabatech and things started getting hard again. He couldn't represent his school at tournaments now, so that source of income for him was closed down. He went back to Ikorodu and began staying with his brother, his parents had gone back to Ibadan.Chess wasn't lucrative enough to pay the bills and he couldn't go professional with it because it required alot of money,so he left chess again.He started teaching job and earned #6000 monthly,the distance was very far and he had to quit the job after 3 months
He also played instruments like drums, guitar, piano and clarinet which he learnt as a child in his local church. He started playing the instruments in other churches for money. He got the idea of teaching chess to Children in schools and he spoke with few of his chess friends that were also unemployed. They agreed to it, wore their suits and started going to schools and making the offer to them. Some schools agreed and they started the job while earning little from it. There was a day they didn't have enough transport fare
on their way back home after eating in a restaurant, so they lapped each other inside Keke while wearing suits.Tunde said it's his most embarrassing moment till date.

Tunde did this job from 2016-2018 and decided that chess wasn't for him after so many experiences and the little pay he received, he then quit the job in 2018. That same year, one day, the instrumentalists he played with told him to follow them to lungu in Majidun, a slum community. He got there and met men, thugs, cultists smoking...most of them had heavy scars on their body. He saw the the children there running around while their parents smoked, it wasn't a conducive environment. Most of the Children were not in schools, they were hawking and Tunde saw that these kids were not growing in the right environment, if they grew in that slum, they'd probably end up becoming like their parents.

At that moment, Tunde had a sudden thought/revelation, he thought about teaching the children chess. He couldn't stop thinking about it when he got back home, and researched about ways chess can help a community. He came back and took permission from the head of the community, who in turn gave them a place where they could teach the kids chess. He and his friends taught the children chess, give them food, teach them and take pictures with them. It was fun.

It wasn't easy funding the project, he even went broke at a point. Fortunately he was posting the movement on Twitter and little by little, people started volunteering as well as contributing to the cause. From the contribution and outreach on twitter, they were featured by BBN, CNN, Al Jazeera, and so on. Journalists from all over the world came to cover their story. Chess in Slums was formed in that year, 2018.

According to Tunde, the project is currently at a place where they're trying to spread and impact more kids. He believes that chess can change lives of children in poor communities in Africa. They don't necessarily have to be become a chess champion, but they'd learn how to think and their horizons will expand beyond their small communities. Chess in slum has also secured deals with international chess organizations.

In three years they've impacted the lives of 300 children, with 30 of them on lifelong scholarships.

From Majidun, they went to another slum, Makoko. In Makoko, things were hard, it was impossible to communicate with them because the Children spoke only egun language.

It was at Makoko that Tunde met Ferdinand.Ferdinand Mamuo was born with cerebral palsy(A congenital disorder of movement, muscle tone or posture)and he didn't make it into the chess in slums programme,but he kept on crying and disturbing that he wanted to join and they eventually let him join after Tunde saw his peers laughing and making fun of him. Turned out that Ferdinand was a chess prodigy! He came top of the group and won the chess championship they organized. His story went viral.

Lagos Governor, sanwo-olu, saw the story and sent Tunde a message.
He met with Ferdinand and they played chess.Their game lasted for forty minutes and it ended in a draw. Now,Ferdinands education is being sponsored by Sanwoolu. Three children also lives with Tunde,they are orphans from the slum community and had nowhere to go,so he adopted them.
His next project was the Oshodi project which went viral so much and brought chess in Slums to more limelight.

Months ago, around July, Tunde drove past Oshodi and saw the teenage boys with heavily scarred faces, who were drinking and smoking Indian hemps. These are boys who have
dreams like every one of their mates but unfortunately, the environment and financial situation they were born in, chose another fate for them.

Tunde couldn't help but picture them in a suit/native attire, playing chess and having a better life as time went on
He thought of making it his next project.

He commenced it months later with his first step, Identifying as and becoming one of them. The second step, Earning their trust...and the third step, Teaching them chess.

A chess competition was organized, two weeks after the children were taught.

What came as a dream/thought on the 5th of July, became a reality from 29th of November.
18year old Adeoye Fawaz, who worked as a bus conductor, won the chess competition.
Adeoye Fawaz is currently worth two million naira.

He also bought Android phones for the "Area boys" and took them out to Banana island yesterday, 23rd of December.

Tunde is currently single but he hopes to enter a relationship by the end of this year or probably next year.
He wants to activate his lovelife once again as he has been emotionally unavailable for the longest time due to his project. Also, his mother has given him a deadline to bring someone back home.

A teenage boy from the slums of Isale Odo in Ikorodu yesterday, is a 27year old man doing his best with his team to take as many children as they can, out of slums communities in Nigeria, today.

Ladies and gentlemen... Tunde Onakoya �

Jayfixx45:
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