Casa ChessKid Maracaibo: A Space Of Hope

The 'ChessKid House' in Maracaibo, Venezuela, is a new space changing the lives of children with a talent for chess. Read all about how this unique chess location is offering support and hope for kids!

With a building named 'Casa ChessKid Maracaibo', ChessKid and its ambassadors in Venezuela opted in 2023 to create a permanent space for exhibitions and activities. In a short time, this has brought huge benefits to the local and regional chess community, and helped to showcase local talent in the state of Zulia.

ChessKid and our ambassador, International Master (IM) César Reyes, have worked to provide a space for local kids to play chess, have fun, and develop their skills. This is marking the lives of many children in this area of Venezuela. Here, we can see that ChessKid is much more than just a website, but also a way of offering support and hope for children who do not have many opportunities.

Photo by IM César Reyes.

In partnership with the chess academy of IM César Reyes, ChessKid has helped to launch in-person and online events where children are allowed to shine. Their talents are rewarded with gifts, classes, gold memberships, and unlimited access to the most effective chess learning and training tools.

The directors of Casa ChessKid Maracaibo, Arminda Palmar and IM César Reyes, have spared no effort in expansions, endowments, materials, equipment, decorations, and prizes for all the participants tournament after tournament, with support by WIM Ivette García from ChessKid en Español, ChessKid.com (@chesskidofficial), and from ChessKid's parent platform: Chess.com, which was recently voted among the 100 most influential companies in the business world.

Between February and July, seven high-quality tournaments have been held, with young talents that represent the present and future of Zulian chess, most of them members of municipal and regional teams at a federal or scholastic level.

Photo by IM César Reyes.

The scope of Casa ChessKid Maracaibo has gone beyond the geographical area of Marabino, with its tournaments attracting the participation of boys from distant municipalities such as San Francisco, Jesús Enrique Lossada (La Concepción), Lagunillas (Ciudad Ojeda) and Valmore Rodríguez (Bachaquero).

Its champions are highly competitive athletes, most with national experience, such as Isaac Salazar and Luis Lizarazo (Club Morero de San Francisco), Kais and Kinda Faraj (Club Rey Blanco de Lagunillas), Gianluca Cruz (Escuela Los Monarcas, Bachaquero), Victoria and Ailyn Niño (Club EZA, San Francisco), Eulimar Morán (Club EZA Maracaibo), Javier Berrueta (Club Los Robles, Maracaibo) and the talents of the Maestro César Reyes Academy (Maracaibo): Victoria García, Thiago Gamardo, Mathías Borges, Samuel Labarca, Ricardo Blanco, Santiago Paz and Jean Franco Bencomo.

 

Photo by IM César Reyes.

IM César Reyes, ambassador of ChessKid in Venezuela, is confident about the growth plans of Casa ChessKid Maracaibo: "The expansion projects in the physical location, the provision of materials and equipment, in addition to ambitious educational, recreational and competitive programs... These are daily dreams, and our challenge is to fulfill and execute them."

 

Photo by IM César Reyes.