Chess Grandmaster KASPAROV in Rwanda on 9th July 2013

In line with the Rwanda Chess Federation (FERWADE) initiative to introduce the Chess game in schools, the former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is visiting Rwanda on 9^th July 2013. The primary objective of this one-day visit is “raising awareness on the role Chess can play as an educational tool.”

Through his foundation, the Kasparov Chess Foundation, Grandmaster Garry helps in raising funds to support the development of Chess across European and very recently African countries. They launched the African operations in March 2012. The Kasparov Chess Foundation Africa has a primary goal of promoting Chess as a tool for education and social development across the African Continent.

Rwanda was chosen to be one of the 8 pilot African countries to initiate the Chess in School program called MiniChess. It is a program FERWADE trust will benefit Rwanda’s education and will also help in detecting young talents in Chess. Indeed, this program focuses on basic concepts that provide learners with the foundation for the development of more advanced math, science and life skills concepts in future years. It has a role to play in achieving the Vision 2020, particularly in the area of Science and Technology, a cross-cutting issue of the Rwanda Vision 2020.

Who is Kasparov?

Grandmaster Garry Kasparov became the youngest world chess champion in history in 1985 and remained the top-ranked player in the world for more than twenty years. His five matches against Anatoly Karpov (former World Chess Champion) brought the game of chess to new heights as a modern professional sport. He is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time and has remained the top-ranked player in the world for more than twenty years. He is also known for his matches against the IBM Supercomputer Deep Blue.

Why Chess in Schools?

Well, by playing Chess more skills are to be acquired. Paul Dauvergne of the University of Sydney, in his book “The case for Chess as a Tool to develop our Children’s minds”, said that “Chess is one of the most powerful educational tools available to strengthen a child’s mind. Whatever a child’s age, chess can enhance concentration, patience, and perseverance, as well as develop creativity, intuition, memory, and most importantly, the ability to analyze and deduce from a set of general principles, learning to make tough decisions and solve problems flexibly.”

Among other benefits of Chess to pupils / students, there are:

-          Develop analytical, synthetic and decision-making skills, which they can transfer to real life;

-          Learn to engage in deep and thorough chess research which will help them build their confidence in their ability to do academic research;

-          Gain insights into the nature of competition which will help them in any competitive endeavor;

-          Foster good sportsmanship, team work and can bring together students who might otherwise feel “left out”;

Moreover, the game can also be played online over the internet which would enable Kids, not only to get more familiar with Computer applications, but also to make international connections with other Chess players.

In addition, the game can be played by people of different age and gender without inequalities deriving from these identities. Indeed, Chess allows girls to compete with boys on a non-threatening, socially acceptable plane and even people with physical disabilities are able to compete with everyone else.