Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) official Loris Nathoo believes that the ChessKid programme initiated by the federation could impact the lives of some 1,000 children by 2022.
Nathoo’s aim is to involve at least 100 children from each of the ten regions. Immediately, he disclosed, schools can muster 100 students who play competitive or tournament chess from Georgetown. Children, he said, are quickly and modestly replacing adult tournament players in numbers.
Indeed, most of the children I have engaged over time said they can study and play chess simultaneously. One complements the other. Chess has been known to raise the level of a person’s intelligence quotient (IQ) and assists with a good memory. Very importantly, playing chess supports Mathematics and English language.
Nathoo contends that carrying chess to all regions in Guyana is important for discovering talent, which can come from anywhere. One niggling difficulty, however, is the idea of promoting chess in a time of Covid-19. Chess activity in the physical sense came to a halt owing to Covid-19. At present, most of the tournaments are happening online. Nathoo is confident though that as soon as normalcy returns there can be aggressive promotion of the GCF’s programme to all the hinterland regions.
