Chess pledges to adopt 100 schools

Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) intends to adopt 100 local schools next year. Recently, the BCF president Tshenolo Maruatona said, “We expect every chess master to identify a school of their choice and the federation will support them in nurturing talent at such schools”.

Over the past few years, the BNSC award winning code introduced an interesting variation for their winners from numerous chess tournaments. Over and above the prize money, BCF tournament winners are given responsibilities to adopt primary schools of their choice and mentor the kids and introduce them to the game of chess.

The federation has so far adopted two schools being Metsimotlhabe Primary School and Tsogang Primary School. Jonah Chaka adopted Metsimotlhabe primary school while Tsogang Primary School is being trained by Coach Lesego Selemogwe.

“This initiative bodes well with the federation’s objective of developing chess among the primary school going kids,” Maruatona explained. Players from both these schools have gone onto represent the country at regional tournaments and they are progressing well in the game. Over the past 2years, BCF has engaged an aggressive campaign to spread the game of chess throughout the country.

The winner of the 2015 Master Chess Championships Dragon Keseilwe has adopted Cornerstone primary school in Mochudi and he furnished them with chess equipment and will be training them for two years.

Roscoe Bonna who adopted Tsogang Primary School played an active role in developing the sport of chess at the school. Some of the kids from the school have already made it into the national team. One of the chess clubs Ice Queen took a bold move to donate chess equipment to 100 primary schools in Botswana.

The equipment was given to Botswana Primary Schools Association to distribute to its members. BCF want to have at least every strong player adopting a school and taking the kids and teachers at such a school through rigorous training programmes.

According to Maruatona by end of 2016, every primary school in Botswana should at least have two rated players, who can go on to mentor and develop other players.