Queen of Katwe's gambit still in play for Uganda's slum chess players

A famous chess club in a slum of Uganda's capital that became the focus of the Hollywood movie Queen of Katwe is still producing champions - but faces a daily struggle to survive. Run by chess coach Robert Katende, played by actor David Oyelowo in the Disney film released in 2016, he still believes that despite financial struggles he is managing to change children's lives for the better through chess. "We use chess as a teaching tool. To identify the potential of the learners and guide them to their destiny," Mr Katende told the BBC on a visit to his SomChess Academy in Katwe, a poor neighbourhood of Kampala. Shortly after graduating as a civil engineer, he first began volunteering in Katwe as a football coach before deciding on chess - starting up with a single chessboard in 2004 and a determination to help. Within a year nine-year-old Phiona Mutesi, who had dropped out of school, joined up - and went on to become a chess prodigy. She took the title of national women's junior champion three times, competed in several prestigious international chess Olympiads and by the age of 16 was given the title Woman Candidate Master by the World Chess Federation. It was her remarkable story that was told in the film, with Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o playing her mother. Mr Katende says her success came from resilience and determination - and shows the truly transformative power of chess. She also continues to be an inspiration for many of Mr Katende's players, including 18-year-old Patricia Kawuma. "Apart from winning school scholarships, this game has taught me how to strategise and plan ahead, and it instils discipline and patience," the two-time national junior chess champion told the BBC. She has also represented Uganda in two international tournaments and has earned money by winning chess competitions. Prize money and sponsorships have enabled her to pay for her own school fees as well as those of her siblings. Mr Katende says more than 4,000 children have gone through his programmes over the last two decades, with some of them ending up becoming doctors, engineers and lawyers. His big boost came after a book published in 2012 by journalist Tim Crothers about Ms Mutesi caught the eye of Disney. When the film company decided to go ahead and make the book into a movie, it gave him a one-time grant of $50,000 (£36,000). This allowed him buy a property in Katwe to headquarter his academy and from where he also runs the Robert Katende Initiative. He was able to extend his chess club from Katwe to sessions within Ugandan prisons - and to slums in neighbouring Kenya and Rwanda, and those in countries as far as Angola, Botswana, Cameroon and Malawi. Currently, more than 2,500 children and about 800 inmates are in his programmes, which help them to develop and make critical decisions, he says. "Chess is a metaphor for life. There are challenges and surprises everywhere but if you look closely you can find opportunities, you can find your way through," the 43-year-old told me. "A bad move in chess means you will lose, just the same with life." There is one move the coach, who worked on the Queen of Katwe film as a senior story consultant and who trained the actors in their chess scenes, did not predict. The Walt Disney Company made a loss on the film - and this has had repercussions for his burgeoning chess projects. He, Ms Mutesi and the chess champion's mother had been promised a sizable share of any Disney profits - 67%, he says. But he was told by the corporation that after investing about $15m (£11m) into the drama, directed by Mira Nair, it had only made back $10m. "The loss put me in a bad spot because people think that I have hidden some money," Mr Katende said. "Many people think I'm a wealthy Hollywood chess coach after the film but the hard truth is that we are yet to benefit from its profits." However, he says he is not bitter as the film publicised his chess programmes, attracting both local and international partners. "If Disney had not done the film, we wouldn't be where we are; I don't think we would be known - and many other people have come on board to support our philosophy," he said. Ms Mutesi's fame helped her win a scholarship to Northwest University in the US in 2017 and she now works in Canada as a business analyst and is able to support her mother, who has moved back to their home village outside Kampala. But Mr Katende's mission faces huge financial challenges as most of his partners have fallen off since the coronavirus pandemic. "We had to scale down operations and close down some training centres. Before Covid I had 14 staff, but now we have eight. I fear we might let go of more staff due to financial constraints," he said. Thousands of his players in Uganda have to scramble for only 120 chess boards due to a lack of funds. Uganda's current junior chess champion, 19-year-old Jovan Kasozi - one of Mr Katende's protégés - has also been hit. The Katende chess initiative pays towards his schooling and the teenager has been able to occasionally crowdfund from some well wishers for extra chess training sessions - but last year he missed out an international tournament because he could not raise $400 for his air ticket. "But I'm not giving up on chess, the game stimulates my mind and it has made me to be very good at mathematics. It makes me think like a computer," the young man told the BBC. Mr Katunde is equally upbeat, saying that it may well be a long game when it comes to Disney. "Hopefully they will reach out to me if they break even," he said, adding that then the profits could start coming in. Go toBBCAfrica.comfor more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter@BBCAfrica, on Facebook atBBC Africaor on Instagram atbbcafrica