By Chisomo Phiri
One of the top Tobacco buying companies, Alliance One Tobacco in collaboration with its sister company Pyxus Agriculture Limited, has announced increasing the sponsorship for the Chess School Project to over K12 million.
The project is being implemented by the Chess Association of Malawi (CHESSAM) in eight rural primary schools in the central region.
CHESSAM in collaboration with the two companies launched the initiative some two years ago to the tune of K2.1 million as a pilot initiative in two primary schools in Dowa.
Last year, the two companies increased their sponsorship to around K6 million which consequently increased the number of participating schools to six.
In his remarks, Alliance One Malawi corporate affairs manager Fran Malila said her company in collaboration with Pyxus Agriculture decided to increase the financial sponsorship of the project to K12 million because chess has the potential of helping kids to do better in class through improved concentration and decision making.
Said Malila:“We have committed ourselves to continue supporting Chessam because our aim is to eradicate the probability of children being involved in child labour in tobacco growing areas, especially after school hours. We therefore believe that playing chess after their classes will not only improve their skills of the game, but also improve their problem solving prowess, critical thinking as well as decision making in their daily endeavors.”
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent’s king.
It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess).
The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in the seventh century in India.
Today, chess is one of the world’s most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide.
