Real-life heroes of chess movie visit Accomack County

Students and adults flocked to Eastern Shore Community College in Melfa, Virginia on Saturday to meet the real-life heroes of the movie, “The Queen of Katwe.”

Robert Katende, a teacher and chess and soccer coach from Uganda, and one of his students, Phiona Mutesi, were made famous by the movie, which was a Disney and ESPN production.

The two visited the Eastern Shore of Virginia as part of an East Coast tour to raise funds and awareness for the Uganda Chess Academy.

Organizers of the visit said it was a chance for Eastern Shore residents, especially young people, to recognize how the game of chess has applications to life.

“Chess is more of a life skill than it is teaching them a game of chess. It’s advance planning, it’s delayed gratification, it’s strategy. And for really, really underserved populations, those are skills they have no way of learning — at home, it’s today; they don’t think about tomorrow,” said David Landsberger of Chincoteague, a member of the Eastern Shore Community College Foundation board of directors.

The Landsberger Foundation sponsors three chess clubs for students on the Eastern Shore — at Kegotank Elementary School, Nandua Middle School and Eastern Shore Community College — as well as a club in Newark, New Jersey.

BACKGROUND: 'Queen of Katwe' to visit Va. Shore

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“We are looking for other teachers so we can do other programs,” in local schools, Landsberger said.

Katende and Mutesi for two hours Saturday played 15 simultaneous chess games with school-age players as a crowd of onlookers quietly observed.

A showing of the movie took place at the same time as the games, followed by a talk and a question-and-answer session with the two visitors from Uganda.

They also signed autographs for the eager crowd. All proceeds from sales of the DVD and of the 2012 book on which the movie was based went to fund the chess academy in Uganda.

The event was among the last stops on a monthlong tour that included Canada, New York, New Haven, Connecticut, and the Washington, D.C. area, before the two headed to Lynchburg, Virginia, the home base of Sports Outreach, the Christian ministry under which Katende works.

Katende on Saturday told the story of his life as the child of a single mother growing up in extreme poverty, and of how he later became a soccer coach and then a chess coach to children in the slums of Kampala.

“Sometimes chess is regarded as a game — other people look at it as a time-wasting game. But the truth is, it’s not what it appears. Chess is an empowerment tool,” said Katende, adding, “What you do on a daily basis is all chess — you have to think abstractly for what you want to do; you have to have a strategy on how you want to achieve your goal.”

The Chess Academy and Mentoring Center in Kampala, Uganda, started a decade ago when Katende, working at the time as a soccer coach for the ministry, wanted to find a way to reach out to children who were not interested in playing soccer.

He started bringing his own chess board from home and teaching chess to the children in one of Kampala’s poorest slums; they also got a meal afterward.

The chess ministry has spread to other countries and now has around 1,400 participants, according to Sports Outreach's website.

Some of Katende’s original students now serve as peer coaches and mentors to younger participants.

Funds are being raised to purchase the land where the existing academy is in the Katwe slum, and to refurbish and expand the building.

“My goal is to see how I can have more lives impacted,” Katende said, adding, “There is a big need.”

Mutesi started coming to Katende’s chess lessons at age 9 — at first mainly because of the free meals. She is 21 now.

As Mutesi said Saturday, and as the movie recounts, she found she had an extraordinary talent for the game, which eventually resulted in her winning tournaments at the national and international level.

She was the first titled female chess player in Uganda.

“My first tournament, when I won it, I won a trophy and I won some money, and I took it to my mom. My mom was so happy about it, because this is the money we used for renting the house and also for getting enough food … She was so happy about it and then she allowed me to go back,” Mutesi said.

Mutesi recently completed high school and received a scholarship to attend university.

She plans to study sociology and to return to Uganda.

“I want to continue with teaching chess,” she said, adding her ultimate goal is to become a grand master.

On Twitter @cvvaughnESN

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