Tunde Onakoya
Tunde Onakoya is a passionate chess player and coach who strongly believe that chess can be wielded as a powerful developmental tool to change young lives and raise a new generation of intellectuals from low-income areas. Chess has long been recognized throughout the world as a builder of strong intellects as it improves cognitive abilities, rational thinking, and reasoning of even the least promising children. Chess brings out latent abilities that have not been reached by traditional educational means. Chess promotes logical thinking, instills a sense of self-confidence, and self-worth improves communication and pattern recognition skills. It teaches the values of hard work, concentration, objectivity, and commitment.
Recognizing the benefits of chess in the development of young children, Tunde Onakoya co-founded Great Minds Chess Academy(GMCA), an educational institute founded with the vision to create chess awareness in schools and empower kids to efficiently do more with the aid of chess with its popular initiative “Chess in Slums”. Through the organization, Tunde empowers kids to realize their full potential by teaching them the principles of the chess game. The organization has been training kids from low-income areas for over 2 years and has successfully trained over 100 kids, some have gone on to win chess tournaments. Chess in Slums currently has over 10 children on lifelong scholarships.
Tunde Onakoya is an alumnus of Yaba College of Education where he studied Computer Science and the University of Philanthropy where he majored in Social Entrepreneurship. Tunde Onakoya is an embodiment of grace, determination, tenacity, and unwavering passion. Thus, for him, the Chess in Slums initiative is a lifelong project. Tunde’s biggest dream is to expand the initiative to other communities in Africa where other children can benefit. He is passionate about using the game of Chess to bring out the talent of young children in low-income communities so that they can master the principles of the game and reap the developmental benefits.
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Using a great and unpopular medium, Tunde Onakoya is a hero who is changing lives and lighting the path of young children in the slum communities.
As a seasoned chess player, he has won a couple of tournaments which includes the RCCG national championship which he won twice and National friends of chess in 2016.
Interestingly, other than being a chess player, Tunde is a professional pianist with a great love for music, graphic artist and a writer.
Chess in slums has been featured on international media outlets such as BBC, Al Jazeera and others. Donations can be made here https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-chess-in-the-slums-in-nigeria to further enable the project to attain its goals.
Tunde Onakoya and his team are amazing young people worth celebrating. We are inspired.