On the heels of hosting an Introduction to Chess workshop for Deaf Students, the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF), in collaboration with the Deaf Association of Guyana, has sought to extend their teachings to teachers who work with deaf students.
A few of the teachers in full Chess mode
The workshop was held over the course of last week at the David Rose Special School. A total of 10 teachers hailing from the Diamond, Tuschen and David Rose Special Schools were taught the rules, regulations and fundamental practices of the game, in accordance with the FIDE (World Chess Federation) rules. Of the 10 teachers, four are deaf. At the end of their training, the teachers tested their newfound skills against each other.
The training session was hosted with the aim of equipping teachers with the requisite knowledge to pass on to their students. In addition, it is the hope of the GCF that this will lead to the implementation of Chess clubs in the respective schools.
Speaking with Guyana Times Sport, workshop facilitator Wendell Meusa stated that the GCF hoped to expand the training sessions outside of Georgetown. Identifying areas such as Linden and Berbice, Meusa said that it would be great to have the programme countrywide.
On March 19, the Federation hosted the student version of the workshop at the National Racquet Centre with the aim of training deaf students and identifying promising players within the batch. These players will hopefully make up the National Deaf Chess Team. In the near future, it is expected that players will be selected to represent Guyana at the FIDE Deaf/ Dumb Chess Championships.
