Malawi prisons’ chess teams make strides in inter tourney

Three Malawian Prison Chess teams have shown encouraging attributes after their promising performance during the three-day 6th Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for prisoners that concluded on Thursday.

The teams, which are Bvumbwe Young Offenders Rehabilitation Centre, Zomba Central Prison and Kachere Women Prison, reached the quarterfinals of the championship.

In the quarterfinals, Bvumbwe finished fourth, ahead of Ukraine, India, Serbia and Ghana, Zomba Prison finished on position 10 ahead of Zimbabwe and Kenya, while Kachere Women, even though they finished bottom of the pool were the only African team that competed against serial contenders such as India, Romania, Georgia, Mongolia and Serbia.

Technical Expert and Coach Gilton Mkumbwa described the feat as a milestone, saying only Bvumbwe Youth reached the quarter finals last year.

Zomba Prison captain Masozi Chanthunya, who won all his seven games, thanked all the team players for the great effort and the prison’s management for the support all through the games, saying it was really a wonderful experience.

“These activities build clarity of mind, focus, patience, emotional control, build digital skills, a sense of dignity beyond our sentences, they also reduce idleness and tension, and demonstrates real rehabilitation,” Chanthunya said.

On her part, Dadaz chess founder Susan Namangale said this was an improvement from last year’s performance.

“Our teams are progressing well, we started with only two teams and now to have six teams is a big achievement,” Namangale said.

She further thanked Malawi Prison Service for embracing the project and all their support.