Calgary, AB
Muhammad Saim
Incredibly passionate about giving back to his community, Muhammad’s ingenuity has enabled him to develop long-term solutions to problems affecting marginalized and vulnerable populations. Firstly, Muhammad helped spearhead Zero Waste, a nonprofit that redirects nutritious food from restaurants to people in need. Wanting to reduce the barriers to accessing more culturally appropriate resources, he joined the Children's Hospital Youth Council to fundraise for more research on creating inclusive healthcare services. In the past, Muhammad also served on other youth councils: identifying, advocating, and addressing issues affecting youth in his community. Wanting to use his skills to help others, he coaches soccer to individuals with intellectual disabilities to help develop their social skills and independence through the Special Olympics.
Checkmate Foundation Canada Sports & Recreation
The Checkmate Foundation is an initiative that aims to meet the unique needs of different communities by fostering development and inclusion through chess education. We host workshops, tournaments, and lessons to achieve this.
https://checkmatefoundation.caAbout this Project
Communities Served
My project will involve and/or impact the following communities:
- Senior citizens
- At risk youth & children
- Refugees & newcomers
- Persons with disabilities
- Indigenous Peoples
- LGBTQ2+ Community members
- Racial or visible minorities
- Vulnerable individuals (e.g. those experiencing addiction, abuse)
- Multi-barrier populations
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
When it comes to community impact projects, the UN has created 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These are the Sustainable Development Goals associated with my project.
- SDG 3: Good health and Well-being
- SDG 4: Quality education
- SDG 5: Gender equality
- SDG 10: Reduced inequalities
How the project works
The Sprouts Fellowship Grant helped to facilitate the introduction of our library programs, and expansion of our school network. After the pandemic, individuals and students in particular have been more isolated. As such, grateful for the positive impact chess has had on my life, I wanted to provide others with the same opportunity to different communities. The foundation envisions a future where people are empowered to discover and develop their passion for chess, using the game as a catalyst for personal growth, emotional-wellbeing, and academic success. We also hoped to foster resilience, critical thinking, and a sense of purpose in the lives of others. The scope of the our project for this Fellowship was to enable more chess sets for the expansion of current workshops and events, and the development of a school chess network to fundraise for charities through chess tournaments. We also collaborated with the Calgary Public Library for “Chess in the Library” and the addition of University of Calgary Chess Classrooms. We ran 2 community classrooms, 1 trellis location, 1 inter-school tournament, and 7 library chess events with the funds we received from the Fellowship.
Project Impact
We were able to run a summer chess camp at Country Hills Library in which 35+ youth joined for a total of 8-weeks. We invited Ward 4 Councellor, Jasmine Mian, MLA Muhammad Yaseen, and the Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism of Alberta join us for an amazing time. Another program that we ran was our Crowfoot Library Tournament that had over 100+ people attend. We also invited MLA Court Ellingson of Foothills. We ran two tournaments getting over 200+ total participants (one in August, and one in July). To expand on the success of these program, we went further; by running a summer august chess tournament at central library to allow people from other parts of the community to also experience the magic of chess (roughly 30 people). All proceeds went to the Mustard Seed. After the inter-school chess tournament that we ran last year (also supported by the grant) with 40+ people, this time on November 24, 2023 we had about 80+ people including parents attending. We added 4 more schools to our inter-school chess network to spread chess in the community. We also continued our Trellis Bowness programs for elementary students (roughly 25 people). Excitingly, we also started a workshop program at the University of Calgary with the Centre for Career and Personal Development at the Life Design Hub for students. At the events we get about 25-30 participants.
Project Mission
The Checkmate Foundation is an initiative that aims to meet the unique needs of different communities by fostering development and inclusion through chess education.
Project Team
We have a team of 15 youth executives who help make the non-profit possible.
- Muhammad Saim - President
- Minh Do - Vice President
- Angellina Dinh / Robert Gao - Social Media Director
- Lucy Chen - Volunteer Director
- Mahad Rzain /Asia Ongjoco/ Royen Raw - Program Directors
- IT Director - William Zheng
- Jay Bhatta / Priyanka J. (Communications Director)
- School Chess Program - Max Xing
- Tournaments Director - Amaan Arif
Video
Checkmate Foundation seeks to elevate the profile of chess in Calgary - CTV Calgary
Optional Photo Gallery
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