When Tunde Onakoya found himself unemployed and broke on the streets of Lagos in 2016, after quitting his teaching job because of its meagre pay and far distance from his house, the former Yabatech chess enthusiast began hiring himself out as an instrumentalist to local churches in his area for a small fee. It was during this period that Tunde got the atypical idea of teaching chess to children. At first, the younger Tunde approached schools with some other of his unemployed friends to pitch this proposal to them but this approach didn’t yield much fruit and so he quit the venture in 2018.
Because destiny is not a thing to be shaken off that easily, Tunde Onakoya unconsciously stumbled on another way to make the dream work, during a trip with a fellow instrumentalist to Iungu in Majidun, a slum community in Lagos, Nigeria. Witnessing first-hand the lives of all those whom the Nigerian society labelled as outcasts, birthed in Tunde — who from childhood had a life filled with many struggles, most of them financial— some kind of epiphany that spurred in him the desire to make a change. It was on this trip that Tunde conceived the idea of teaching chess to children in the slums of Lagos.
Tunde Onakayo did some research about the benefits of chess in communities such as this and then went ahead to ask the head of the community for permission to begin this innovation. At this time, Tunde wasn’t doing so well financially, so funding was an issue. Still, the man, who many have described as having a heart of gold and a resilient spirit, didn’t let his lack stop him from doing his part to ensure that the kids in those slums didn’t end up like their predecessors.
Tunde was able to get some contributions after videos of the project were seen on social media. The project was eventually featured on news outlets like CNN and Aljazeera, giving it some much-needed publicity to be able to expand its reach. In three years since its inception, Chess In The Slum has impacted the lives of over three hundred children, including putting some on lifelong scholarships. One of these children is Adeoye Fawaz, an eighteen-year-old bus conductor who won the ‘Chess In The Slum of Africa’ tournament in both mental mathematics and chess after weeks of intense training.
Tunde Onakoya just won The Future Africa Awards in the category of Community Action, emerging as the winner amongst four others. Many agree that this is just the beginning of Tunde’s and Chess In The Slum’s rise to the top as the promising 27-year-old and his team who defied all odds and started a movement like no other before it isn’t showing any signs of stopping.
Tunde Onakoya is fueled by love, empathy and the desire to put hope in the hands of those who would otherwise be forced by society to wield guns and knives. Tunde does more than teach chess to children in the slums; he is also building a community of older men living in these parts and finding ways to empower and encourage them.