Making her move
Making her move
27 October 2016
David Oyelowo is Robert Katende and Madina Nalwanga is Phiona Mutesi in Disney's Queen of Katwe.
The chess world was turned on its ear in 2010 when Phiona Mutesi, an unknown from the Katwe slums of Kampala, Uganda, debuted at the 39th Chess Olympiad in Russia. Her skill and determination propelled her to the game’s top rank. Now Disney has chronicled her unlikely rise in a movie, The Queen of Katwe, opening on 1 December. It was shot on location in Uganda and stars Madina Nalwanga as Phiona.
In 2005, Phiona had never before seen a chess board. A poor girl from the Katwe slums, she’d secretly followed her brother into a church. Desperately hungry, she was looking for food but found something far more sustaining.
Sports Outreach soccer coach Robert Katende (played in the film by actor David Oyelowo, best known for Selma) knew the feeling. He’d also been a poor orphan in Katwe. “All I had was a mattress, a fork and a spoon to my name,” Robert stated in a documentary. He’d thought about ingesting poison to end it all, but he couldn’t even afford the money to die.
Robert’s faith pulled him through, and, with hard work, he graduated from university. Skill with a soccer ball helped him attain financial security. Now a soccer coach, he realised not every child was interested in soccer. “How could I get them actively involved?” he thought. So he started bringing along his chess set, and kids gravitated to the game.
One of these children was Phiona.
“The lifestyle she’s led right from childhood is a lifestyle of figuring out what to do, how to survive, what is the next step, because you’ll never be safe in Katwe,” says Robert, “so when she came to the board, she felt like this was what she did on a daily basis, figuring out situations, seeing what would work.”
A natural prodigy, Phiona entered her first tournament in 2006, and won. In 2008, just two years after she had first seen a chess board, she was Uganda’s junior girl’s national champion. In 2012, she competed in the Chess Olympiad and she came to represent Uganda in international chess competitions. “It’s unbelievable,” says a proud Robert. “This is a miracle to me.”
“My dream in chess is to become a grandmaster,” says Phiona. “My dream in life is to become a pediatrician.”
Despite all of Phiona’s success, she has always kept her focus on God, family and friends. As with Robert, she recognises how blessed her life has become because of chess and now she uses that same game to help open the doors of opportunity for others.
“Sometimes the place where you are is not the place where you belong,” says Robert. His faith helped him endure grinding poverty and the loss of his mother. Having escaped Katwe, he was determined to help others do the same.
“We all need to step out of our comfort zone, to make one person’s life better,” he says. “God has made us who we are and we can make a difference if we choose to do so.”
Article first published in the Canadian Salvationist.
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