1,000 Chess Sets Reach Botswana!
1,000 The Gift of Chess, chess sets have safely arrived in Botswana 🇧🇼. Under the leadership of Lesole, these sets will be distributed across schools, prisons, orphanages, refugee communities, and centers — creating a generation of critical thinkers and igniting opportunity!
Meet Lesole:
My first encounter with chess came when I was 12 years in the rural settlement of Tshimoyapula, located in the central district of Botswana. I got to see and know about chess from a national television news on their report about a local tournament.
This is my story
I got to see and know about chess from national television news on their report about a local tournament. I Fell in love with the game instantly but had to wait 3 more years to experience the actual feel of a physical chess set at Mmashoro junior secondary school.
I took up chess more seriously as player at Francistown secondary school. I spent lot of hours studying the game on my own and played events both locally and in neighboring countries. At one point I represented my country at the 2017 African Amateur Championships in Livingstone-Zambia and the 2018 edition in Windhoek-Namibia. My best individual performance was finishing second at the 2018 Zimbabwe Easter International Open.
While I was mainly a player through the years I have always been having spirit of volunteerism and doing administration work on the side. In 2017 I volunteered to coach team Central district at the Botswana National Youth Games and our team finished second in the girls section. In the 2019 edition I opted to coach team Gaborone city since I was already based there, we went on to finish on the podium. From those experiences i developed love for coaching, decided to dedicate most of
my time in training and organizing events for junior players. As an attempt to enhance my coaching skills, I enrolled into a Fide trainer seminar and at the end I was accredited with the FIDE Instructor tittle. During the covid-19 pandemic I was appointed as the Senior National team assistant coach for the 2020 Fide Online Olympiad.
December 2021 I was appointed as the head coach for the National youth team for the Africa Schools Championships in Nairobi, couldn’t travel with the team because I tested covid-19 positive right before our departure. I worked with the team through online sessions during event and we brought home 3 bronze medals.
Early 2022 I founded Lucena chess academy to nurture more talents. The academy has been doing amazingly well. Our students made up 75% of the 2022 National youth team composition and I was yet again appointed the head coach of the team. I got to meet Phyllis, of The Gift of Chess, during the same 2022 African Youth Championships in Lusaka Zambia. She shared with me in detail the vision of The Gift of Chess and already I was willing to jump on board. In 2023 got another opportunity to lead the National team on the Online Africa schools Championships, we finished overall first in Africa with 2 gold medals, 4 silver medals and 3 bronze medals.
The two gold medalists qualified by right to represent Africa at the world schools championships in Rhodes-Greece, and I had to accompany them and give all the technical support. We also did amazingly well there, causing huge upsets by winning against the highest rated player in the under 13 Girls section and finishing the event with more than 100 elos gained in one event. Last year December(2022) I launched the Lucena- chess at church project with a pure attempt to teach chess and for free to the marginalized community around the church I go to, in Rasesa village, just outside Gaborone city.
The project fell off some reason being lack of chess sets.
Meeting Phyllis and eventually being appointed as the ambassador for The Gift of Chess to Botswana means a lot to me. The gift of chess mission and vision is very much in alignment with my own personal goals and spirit of making chess and chess sets accessible across my country even deep in rural settlements like Tshimoyapula where I grew up.
Working with councils, federation, coaches, parents, players, and different people in the society throughout these years puts me in a good position to know where to go to and how to best distribute the chess sets across all the districts of our country. I have dedicated most part of my life to chess so I am excited and ready to partner with and represent the gift of chess in distribution of chess sets throughout the country and share along the way every story attached to the project.