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Tadious Manyepo Youth Interactions Correspondent

FOUR years ago, Mudavanhu Primary School, located deep in Muvirimi Village, in Chivhu district was another ordinary rural learning institution.

At face value, it still looks ordinary. Very ordinary.

The rugged 15-kilometre stretch from the tarred road from Nharira Business Centre makes driving such a tedious undertaking.

The school’s poor infrastructure corresponds well with the surrounding villages in an area tucked between Daramombe and Madzivire Ranges.

In 2020, the pass rate at the school was 20 per cent. And it’s not surprising given most of the students who sat for the 2020 Grade 7 examinations were from child-headed families where motivation and proper guidance rarely exist. It’s not surprising either that some drop out of school due to pregnancies and acute poverty.

One could be tempted to think it’s all gloomy at this school until the name Mudavanhu Primary School rings a bell in the mind.

This is where the Chess “Golden Girls” who took the country and the continent by storm two years ago were nurtured. Right from scratch.

In 2019 the quartet of Mazviita Tapambwa, Lyn Chidanire as well as twin-sisters Natalie and Natasha Choko emerged as the best in Zimbabwe. That earned them tickets to represent the country in the African Chess Championships in Namibia the same year. After toiling in search of sponsorship for the trip, Natasha fell ill and pulled out of the trip while the trio went on to win a single gold and two bronze medals.

Yet, there is no prize for guessing that very few, if any pupils at Mudavanhu had previously come across a chess board yet alone knew how the game is played until the school welcomed a new teacher, Godknows Dembure in 2017.

The rate at which students, especially girls were dropping out of schools, pained Dembure to the marrow.Armed with his basic knowledge of Chess, he decided to use the game to fight child marriages.

“It was very difficult convincing not only the students to play the game but their guardians as well,” said Dembure.

“I remember it was in early 2018 when I decided to play my small part in bringing entertainment and fighting child pregnancies. “I really love the game so I decided to introduce it to mainly the female students to keep them occupied. “Predictably, there was no chess board at the school and I made an improvised one from wood. I had to be patient since no one knew how the game was played.

“With time, the girls started to grasp the concepts and that’s how we started entering competitions. At the moment I can say we are the hub of schools’ chess. We have national champions at the school right now and other schools in our area are also introducing the game as well.”

The gains the school had registered would be affected with the coming in of the Covid-19 pandemic and the four couldn’t travel for their second African competition in Kenya in 2020. The authorities decided the competition would go forward in virtual format in June last year. Only Chidanire had a decent smartphone to enter the competition but lost 18 minutes in the final as network problems in this part of the country haunted her.

She settled for silver.  Natalie and Natasha, who stayed with their grandmother while attending Mudavanhu Primary have now been adopted by a certain private company which is paying their school fees at a secondary institution in Harare.

Tapambwa and Chidanire are still at Mudavanhu Primary.

“I didn’t know how to play this game but as long as I am not bad academically, I now have a lot of hope in this game. I will keep on working hard, who knows, maybe this game will be the way to a better future,” said Chidanire. Tapambwa’s mother Miriam Mutasa, who also attended the school, hailed Dembure and the school’s administration.

“We never thought that one day Mudavanhu Primary School would be that popular,” she said.

“This community is one of the most marginalised and the fact that we are now receiving visitors who are coming and assessing how the game is being taught makes us, as parents and villagers, very proud.

“You see most of the students come from child-headed families and in the past child marriages were rampant. But I can tell you we are witnessing a different trend.

“The Chess coach (Dembure) is encouraging every girl to pursue this game. What it means now is when they are not doing academic work, they would be learning how to master the game and they are always occupied.

“Dembure has literally saved this community. As parents we support him with donations when the team is travelling because we have to back what he is doing.

All the students including those who haven’t made it in the Chess team are really inspired just like those from all the other schools around this area.”

Four pupils from Mudavanhu were supposed to be participating at the 2021 African Youth Championships in Ghana this month but they have since withdrawn due to lack of sponsorship