Phiona Mutesi: Breaking chains, wearing medals

When ESPN sports writer and professor at North Carolina University, USA came to Uganda in 2010 to write about a little girl born in Katwe, a Kampala slum, whose skill at playing Chess was extraordinary, he ended up with a book that is today being made into a movie.

Queen of Katwe is a movie about the life of Phiona Mutesi, the 19-year-old start Chess player. The book is being cast into a movie in Uganda by a California-based film company, Disney and will feature Hollywood star, Lupita Nyong’o.

But Mutesi’s is a story worth telling and sharing with the world. It is a story of a little girl who broke chains and won medals in Chess, a game she did not go to school to learn.
HIV robbed of Mutesi and her family of her father in 1999 when she was three years old.
Her mother, Harriet Nakku, was left to fend for her four children alone. The family lived in deplorable conditions in Katwe, and on many occasions went without food and suffered the misery that a slum life can bring to mankind.
One day, with an empty stomach, Mutesi, then about nine years old, reached out to a local sports training centre, Sports Outreach Institute, for vulnerable children in the neigbourhood.

She did not go to the centre to play Chess or any other game the other children played, no. “Can I have some food,” she asked Robert Katende, who eventually became her coach, in Luganda. She did not know English. They had dropped out of school soon after their father’s death.

The conditions, however, were that one had to train in some kind of sport to get anything from the centre, including food.

Unintentionally, the search for food landed Mutesi in the world of Chess, which eventually became her key to doors she would never have dared to knock at.

From Katwe to the top
In 2009, at 13, Mutesi’s star shone when she participated in the Under 16 Chess Competition in Sudan. This girl who joined the game of Chess accidently would go on to participate in various international chess competitions in Europe, America and Asia, winning medals.

Like the Biblical proverb that a prophet is never honoured in his homeland, Mutesi seemed to grab more fame abroad than here in Uganda.

According to her coach, Robert Katende, in USA, for example, in states such Virginia, some Chess competition days are named after Mutesi, and, there, people can more readily recognise her than most Ugandans.. “At international airports, people see her and say ‘there is Mutesi’,” narrates Katende. She has dined with the US President, Barrack Obama and the world’s richest man, Bill Gates among other international iconic figures.

She has also addressed international gatherings, among them the Women in the World Summit in April 2013 where participants paid $4000 (about Shs11m) to listen to Mutesi and other key international figures share their story.

Mutesi at school
When I meet Mutesi at St Mbuga Vocational Secondary School in Makindye where she is in Senior Five, I’m amazed by her humility. She is a reserved dark-skinned girl who seems oblivious of all the fame around her. When coach Katende introduces me, “Phiona, meet Brian from Full Woman magazine at the Saturday Monitor,” Mutesi smiles widely. I wonder why.

“My brother is called Brian,” she smiles. I later realised Mutesi smiles more than she talks about her achievements. “I am like any other student here,” she assures me. “Whatever I have achieved, I leave outside. I wouldn’t want a situation where someone does not talk to me because of that (Chess honours). At school, I am a student who strives to work hard,” she explains.

For Chess, Mutesi has travelled to many countries. She begins with Sudan, her first destination outside Uganda. She goes on to name Sweden, Germany, USA, Russia, and Turkey up to when she loses count. The 19-year old has been to more 10 countries.

“I never get to know when I will be traveling. I think my coach and other people do not want to disrupt my academics. They only tell me when it is one or two days to travel. Even when I received an invitation from Bill Gates, it was my friends who told me first because they had read about it in the papers,” she says with a big smile. And what did you say to him? “Well, I spoke about my life, the achievements I have made and how I want to inspire others since I have also been helped,” she says.

Welcome changes
The 19-year-old now juggles a Chess career that comes with international trips and her formal education. And it seems she is trying her best. Mr. Isaac Kahinda, the school administrator says Mutesi is one of the bright students in class always occupying the first positions in class.
Mutesi considers it a privilege to have traveled around the world to know about other people and their lives. “But my greatest achievement is being able to receive an education. I had dropped out of school and did not believe I could be in school again. At home, we did not have anything, not even where to sleep. We begged around for everything,” she says.

Mutesi says her other achievement is a house she built for her mother who has since moved from Katwe to Mityana. Mutesi used the money Disney; the film-making company gave her as commitment fee to cast the movie, Queen of Katwe. “My mother now has somewhere to sleep and land on which to grow food,” she, with pride, lets on.

Her Chess career dream is to become a Grand Master – the highest achievement in the game of Chess, just like her role model, former Russian world champion and grandmaster, Garry Kasparov.
Mutesi also wants to be a lawyer to fight corruption and social injustice, especially against girls and women. She used the $25,000 (about Shs70m) money she got when she spoke at the Women in the World Summit to start the Women Chess Clinics where she teaches youngsters Chess and do motivational speaking.

The first clinic was hosted by Uganda Martyrs Secondary school in Rubaga. About 462 youngsters attended. As the world celebrates the international Women’s Day today and women look for fellow women for inspiration, Mutesi’s story is one many could draw inspiration from.

ABOUT WOMEN’S DAY

Tomorrow, the world celebrates the International Women’s Day. The official theme in Uganda is “Empowerment of Women and Girls is Progress for All: Three Decades of Gains for Ugandan Women and Girls.” What does this day mean to Mutesi?
She says; “Women are always under looked but this day is a message to all women to come out and play their role. It is about empowering women. As a woman, there is no limit, you can do anything.”

Off the cuff
Which Ugandan woman do you admire?
Rebecca Kadaga because she is a national leader and she loves this country. The second is Jennifer Musisi (Kampala Capital City Authority Executive Director). I love her because some people hate her for what she has done in Kampala, but I think there is a lot of improvement in the city because of her.

Who is the most beautiful woman in Uganda?
Maybe there are many but I am not sure who it is. I will have to think about that a little more.

What would you say is so special about women?
Women are mothers. They struggle to look after their families. Like when my father died, my mother became both the father and mother to my siblings – one sister and two brothers and I. Women contribute a lot to the development of this country.