Roger Dickinson the director and founder of ChessKids Academy has big plans for pupils in Diepsloot.
ChessKids was launched in 2008 in South Africa and has been specially adapted to be both relevant and accessible to the South African youth, particularly orphaned and vulnerable children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Thabo Raphela of Diepsloot knows this all too well.
When the ChessKids Academy was first launched six years ago, Thabo read about it in a local newspaper and decided that he wanted to learn to play chess.
At the time, he lived in Diepsloot and the Academy was run from Monash University in Ruimsig.
Raphela attended Saturday sessions for two years and eventually started his own chess club in Diepsloot. Over the last three years, Raphela has been the driver behind chess in Diepsloot establishing
his own chess social enterprise and giving chess lessons to about 600 children at four schools and a youth centre in the sprawling informal settlement.
Two of the schools that Raphela coaches qualified for the Gauteng District competition last year and one of his students were selected to represent Gauteng at the Junior Chess championships in Durban in December last year.
He said, “I really enjoy working with young people and want to make a difference in my community. There are always so many negative stories coming out of Diepsloot that I decided to do something positive. By getting the children involved in chess we are taking them off the streets.”
“I have seen how chess has helped the children with their school work and improved their marks particularly in mathematics. It is a difficult game and it requires perseverance and commitment. We host graduation ceremonies once they have reached a certain level which provides a great sense of achievement,” explained Raphela.
“Thabo has really been one of the Academy’s success stories. He empowered himself by learning chess and is now sharing the game with hundreds of children in Diepsloot. We are really proud of what he has achieved in his community and we look forward to encouraging more learners from around Gauteng to join the Academy,” concludes Dickinson.
