Help unprivileged – Donate Chess
I am glad to shoutout that On my birthday, I started a journey to introduce chess among unprivileged children. Chess game includes strategic thinking, making smart decisions and anticipating consequences.
My Inspiration for distributing chess is Devanshi Rathi. please find her story :
I started off small with only a few students, educating them on the basics of chess. Those that were interested came back for more sessions, so I continued to develop their skills. Some were excited to learn something new, whilst others were keen to build on the few skills that they already had. Word soon spread about Project Checkmate, with regular attendees enjoying it so much they brought their friends along too. Thankfully, I was able to cater for more numbers with kindly donated chess boards.
As numbers started to increase, I started to expand the work of Project Checkmate to include the organising of chess tournaments, chess quizzes, history workshops, and sessions where we all sat and analysed the games of famous chess masters. Although all this activity was hugely positive and we were continuing to engage more and more young people in our project, I felt that me being just one person teaching so many students wasn’t productive enough for anyone involved! Being a full-time player myself, as well as a full-time student, I wasn’t able to go to as many on-site sessions as I would’ve wanted. So, I used online training to bridge this gap; using social media, as well as Skype, phone calls and email threads to converse with my students and keep up-to-date with what they are doing and learning. I also created online classes that people could follow and complete, when my schedule didn’t permit me to go and teach in person.
To complement this, I have since authored two short manuals – one on chess improvement and the other on enhancing one’s coaching/training abilities. Noticing that there weren’t many books in an accessible format, I worked with the National Association for the Blind in New Delhi to convert my books into Braille, ensuring that the teaching is as accessible as possible for those wanting to learn.
Top 3 tips for building a project:
1. Start small. I would say to just start somewhere, even if it’s in a very small way. The smallest acts can deliver the biggest impact, so never under-estimate your power to create change.
2. Keep persevering. It’s important to keep iterating, finding what works best for you and the people that you are providing a service to. Don’t put pressure on yourself to find the golden solution right at the beginning, if you rush it you’ll likely miss something important, so give yourself the time and accept that there will be a lot of trial and error.
3. Don’t give up! Finally, don’t give up on any hope after losses or failures because they are usually only temporary – if one works really hard and doesn’t keep thinking about the results (or lack of) you will eventually find what you’re looking for.
