Learners Chess and Voices on the Border are teaming up, once again, to lead a delegation of Albuquerque high school students, who are experienced Learners Chess Jr. Leaders, to travel to El Salvador with the mission of teaching chess to students and teachers at under-resourced rural schools. Click here to read about our past Learners Without Borders ervice trips.  

Meet our Youth Leadership Team for Summer 2019:

• Quinn Ennis (click here to donate to Quinn's trip )  
• Daniel Viorica (Click here to donate to Daniel's trip) 
• Andrew Wolz (click here to donate to Andrew's trip ) 

Click here to read our Mission Overview 

Need to be addressed: Parents and youth in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador report that local youth seek to engage in positive activities so they will be less likely to consider migration or get caught up in gangs and violence. Teachers have identified the need to organize chess clubs that will allow youth to develop leadership skills and give them another reason not to migrate. They believe that chess will help their students think logically, learn to concentrate, develop problem-solving skills, and build community.

Project Goals

1. Lead a regular chess class/workshop for community youth in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador for up to 10 days.
2. Host a day-long chess event and celebration that includes a final chess tournament.
3. Create community building opportunities for Salvadoran youths and Learners Junior Coaches.

Funds will be used to pay for our plane tickets, ground transportation, some lodging (although we are keeping costs low by doing home-stays), food, translators, and chess equipment to leave with the community.

If we exceed our fundraising goal, overflow funds will be used to build the program for future years.

Please make a contribution to help us reach our goal today!

You can also send a donation made out to:

Learners Chess Academy 
532 Adams NE
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108.

This will be the fourth major service project undertaken by Learners Chess.

• In 2012, Learners Chess ran a no cost chess camp for kids in a local low income housing development.
• In 2013 a Learners Chess delegation traveled to Moore, Oklahoma after the devastating 2013 tornadoes and we ran a free chess camp for kids in the community so that they could have a fun summer experience after many of their homes and schools were destroyed. Here is a news-clip from that effort.  And here is a video of the Moore group of chess learners playing our very sophisticated signature game, Super Bughouse, after only four days! 
• In 2016, Learners Chess launched the Learners Without Borders program and sent a delegation to El Salvador to teach chess to kids at schools in low income rural villages.

Voices on the Border, is our partner organization for this year's Learners Without Border Progam. Voices is a nonprofit organization that accompanies rural communities in El Salvador as they struggle for social and economic justice and sustainability.

Learners Chess is an Albuquerque not for profit organization founded in 2010. Our mission is to develop intellectual, social, and leadership maturity in kids through teaching the game of chess. We teach chess, weekly during the school year and at summer camps, to over 1,400 kids in Central New Mexico. We have a Jr. Leadership program through which middle and high school former Learners students volunteer at our camps and after school programs to gain experience and hone their leadership skills.

Thank you so much for reading our donation page. Stay tuned for other ways to help out!