The 2015/16 National Chess League winners, Eagles Chess Club (ECC), have urged parents and school administrators to embrace the sport.

This comes after two of the club’s 14-year-old youngsters, Sandrine Uwase and Joselyne Uwase qualified to join the women’s national team that will represent Rwanda at the 2016 Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan from September 1.

Candidate Master (CM) Alexis Ruzigura, the ECC spokesperson, told Times Sport that parents must realize that introducing the game to their children is "an investment that pays off big time.”

Ruzigura said: "Fortunately, Chess development doesn’t need vast grounds and exorbitant funds. We are talking about a very important game, being the best sport to exercise the most important organ in our bodies, the brain,”"The game improves kids’ reading skills; increases problem-solving skills; and sparks creativity, and improves school grades, among others. It is bizarre we don’t see the game in all homes and schools.”

According to Ruzigura, a standard tournament chessboard costs about Rwf12, 000, " money which some parents spend on just beer yet chess is a big thing for a child.”

He added that the cost of just one international soccer fixture in Kigali could sustain a three-year chess promotion campaign countrywide, with enormous and very rewarding results.

Superior performance

When qualifiers that determined which 10 players make both the Open and Women sections of the national team for the upcoming Olympiad, concluded last weekend, the Eagles had seven players in the national team.

 The open and women sections of the national team have five players each and, in the entire national squad of 10 players, ECC has four players in the open section and three players, including two teenagers, in the women section.

The two girls who will be making their first appearance in the national team and in an Olympiad, Ruzigura said, are from a humble background but are now going to be ambassadors and role models.

The girls come from a densely populated slum in the Gikondo neighborhood of Kigali where chess is a thriving pastime.

"We hope they will inspire others to follow in their footsteps. And we hope that the exposure they get in Baku will propel them to greater heights,” Ruzigura said.

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