Returning Home where it all Began

Last Saturday Chess Without Borders hosted an official US Chess Federation rated chess tournament at Grove Avenue Elementary School in Barrington. Families had come all the way from Milwaukee and Chicago to play in the tournament. Grove is the District 220 school that was the birthplace for this chess program in 1999

District 220 schools, Quest Academy and Elgin Academy schools competed in the event with a total of about 60 students. Tournaments are a great way of building social, intellectual and emotional intelligence and at CWB we strive to educate students by utilizing multiple intelligences. Since its inception in 1999 this was created as a grassroots program by a 4th grader from Grove Avenue School named Rishi Sethi. At each tournament 100% of the sales from food at the chess events are donated to a local or international charity. Youth volunteers Dunya and Dimetri Diyadawagamage, Eleanore van Marwijk Kooy served food while middle school students Rishi and Ethan Gagliano volunteered as tournament directors to raise $420 that was donated for the x prisoner Christmas lunch that will be held in Dec and to help fight the persecution of the Rohinghas from Myanmar. Another middle school student Pranav Ramachandra did a short presentation on the Rohingha people for a crowd of about 150 people that attended the event.

Mr Mridul Batra was a special guest was an educator from Delhi, India. He runs schools in India and he was interested in forming an affiliation with Chess Without Borders. The program is reproducible as it has standardized learning trough its textbook, Chess! Lessons from a Grandmaster. It is available both on Amazon and the ipad.

Chess Without Borders and its youth have won many awards for its unique combination of chess with humanitarian work. Visit:

http://shulmanchess.com/biography-of-chess-without-borders/

Here are some important videos of our volunteers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQe0Y1FT3Co&feature=youtu.be and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmyDix4rvT0

The chess program was featured on the National US Chess site at: _http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12133/704/_