An 18-year-old boy, identified as Adeoye Fawaz, who works as a bus conductor in Lagos has become the overall champion in chess in slum contests.
The contest was organized by Chess In Slum Africa, a nonprofit organization known for using the game as a framework to promote, educate, and raise champions from low communities.
Recently, the group organized a chess exercise for “51 homeless children” living under the bridge in Oshodi, a hustling and bustling area of Lagos State.
Goldennationblog.com gathered that during the exercise, the team took the children on the rudiments of chess as well as mental maths where they were given several puzzles to solve.
It was gathered that the exercise ended up with a contest organized to test the participants’ knowledge of what they were taught during the training session.
According to a Twitter thread, the founder of the organization, Tunde Onakayo, said Fawaz emerged as the overall champion in both chess and mental maths.
He also recounted how he and his team saw Fawaz about a month ago under the bridge and then enlisted him for the exercise.
In his explanation, he said, the bus conductor revealed that he still nurses the dream of becoming a musician and comedian.
Adeoye Fawaz, said “An 18-year-old boy who works as a bus conductor and has lived years of his life under Oshodi bridge emerged as our overall champion in both chess and mental maths. A star is born.”
“The final phase of the mental maths competition was fast and furious but Fawaz aced the questions. Now imagine if you gave these boys a proper education?! Imagine if you gave them coding?! Imagine how many of them we’ve lost to the streets because no one paid attention.”
He said some of the participants — who are between the ages of 11 and 20 — include orphans and those who ran away from their homes to seek greener pastures in Lagos.
“51 homeless children in one of the most dangerous ghettos in Nigeria showed up every day for our chess training because they saw an opportunity to learn — a new lease of hope,” he added.
“Some of are them, orphans, while some ran away from their villages to seek greener pastures in Lagos.”
He also uses the opportunity to call on Nigerians to support the children to further explore their potentials and get quality education.
Ferdinand, who has spastic cerebral palsy, won the last edition of the contest held in Makoko, Lagos.
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