Belize takes chess.

• Author: Stalker, Ian
• Position: !Ojo! - Belize National Youth Chess Foundation aims to produce chess talent

COULD LITTLE BELIZE produce a chess giant along the lines of Garry Kasparov one of these days? Well, that's no sure thing, but the Central American country does have a lot more young people learning the finer points of castling lately, thanks to transplanted residents Ian and Ella Anderson.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Ian Anderson is a Canadian who moved to Belize seventeen years ago to offer adventure caving and other such activities to tourists through his jungle lodge. He and his Russian-born wife, Ella, launched the Belize National Youth Chess Foundation in July 2007. Its five summer camps led to more than 500 primary school children joining over 45 newly created chess clubs throughout the country in the first year.

"It was marvelous," recalls Ian Anderson. "[It is] truly a national foundation, with primary school children playing chess by candle and lantern light in remote villages without any power, all the way from the southern-most border with Guatemala to the northern border with Mexico."

The foundation focuses on children aged nine to twelve who come from poor and disenfranchised families in rural areas or inner cities, but it encourages all children to join. Under Ella's direction, it trained 79 chess coaches in the first year alone. Ella Anderson is an educator and previously worked as program director for New York City's "Chess in the Schools" program, a multi-million-dollar non-governmental initiative that teaches chess to students in poor neighborhoods. The program sees chess as a tool for educating and motivating students who are struggling academically. She met her husband while vacationing at his lodge. Ella's first project in the country was to teach Belizean children how to play chess as part of a program called "Bad Cats," aimed at complementing Ian's program work with struggling high school students.

Chess wasn't new to Belize but Ian Anderson says only a handful of Belizeans have traditionally played the game. That situation is changing. The 500 students introduced to the game in 2008 are expected to be followed by 500 more in 2009, and the foundation hopes that soon, chess will be played in every primary school in the country. "We already have over 60 active chess clubs around the country at this time," reports Anderson, whose business is the primary financial supporter of...