Valuable life skills taught through chess

Kaiti Kings Chess Club was founded in 2014 by the late Tuta Ngarimu who recognised that chess could be a vehicle to help rangatahi and adults work through their problems. In 2015 Noble Keelan and his whanau took over the running of the club and continue to do so today. 

“Our club is a safe space where anyone is welcome – it doesn’t matter what colour or how old they are,” says Noble. “We give them a kai (food) and if I see a need I’ll give them some sort of korero (talk), relating it back to chess. In chess, like life, there are choices – they need to decide their best option.” 

Through the game of chess Noble says club members are learning many important skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, perseverance and patience which all have a positive impact on their lives.

They encourage rangatahi who attend to step up and be the best they can be, at whatever it is, as long as that ‘thing’ is positive. 

A $5000 grant from Sunrise will enable the club to update their uniforms which members wear when they travel to various tournaments throughout the year and purchase 15 new chess sets to replace the well-used, dated sets they currently have. 

“Thank you so much for the grant. The kids will feel so proud in their uniforms when we go away to tournaments and having the new chess sets looks so good if any new members want to join us,” says Noble.