It was fun, I enjoyed myself so much, thank you for organizing this event for us
-Korede Ayoola, 13 (played Monopoly)
It was lively and fun
-favour Omotayo, 14 (played monopoly)
It was brain tasking and awesome
-Adegbuyi Elijah, 15 (played Mgbako)
It was quite interesting and lovely
-Akomolafe Boluwatife, 18 (played Homia)
It was brain tasking, required a lot of thinking
-Ayobami Ogunbiyi, 17 (played chess)
It was interesting, it challenged me to think deeply
-Aribidesi Mayowa, 15 (played luku luku and Gbosi)
When we thought of what unique thing to do for this year’s Christmas funfair for the children’ wing of our church, then the idea of boardgames came up, this being inspired by the recently organized African Boardgames Convention (AB Con) held recently in Abuja. So thanks to the Nibcard team, we got a couple of games like Luku luku, Mgbako, Chiyawa, Gbosi, Homia (build your home) alongside games like monopoly, chess and ludo.
Being the first time this event Is organized in the church, and most of the games being new to most of us, we had to spend some time understanding them ( and I must say that they were easy to comprehend thank to the step by step guides which came along with all the games designed by Nibcard).
After getting a grasp of all these game, tables were created and children encouraged to approach different tables to experience different games in order to appreciate learning something new.
Over 85 children took turns to share in the fun and adventure of enjoying all the games that were on available for play on the day. Bolorunde, 12 years of age, proved the best war lord of the Gbosi game, defeating all challengers with his unique tactics and proof of mastery of the game, he even ended up defeating his teacher, 15 year old Aribidesi Mayowa. In his own words, “it feels I’ve been playing this game for so long”.
The Mgbako game did almost frustrate a couple of our children, chief of them being little miss Adegboyega Aanuoluwa who at two occasions stormed away from the table, eventually, after a couple of pep talk, she calmly read in-between the lines, understood the links and did remarkably well, eventually playing over 6 rounds.
Homia, one game that got 6 of our children sat in one position working out how to “build their home”. This game was so interesting 3 of them stormed to meet one of our teachers to express their excitement in the fir understanding of the game.
Monopoly was one game everyone wanted to play, in the absence of scrabble, from the beginning of the session right to the end, we had over 10 players who stayed put on the monopoly table, taking but a few moments of break. Perhaps that’s how interesting it was to play the game with friends they’ve probably never had such opportunity to play with, or perhaps that’s how interesting the game really is, I honestly can’t tell because I’ve never played the game before so can’t really distinguish.
I believe we now have a young farmer in the making by the name Timileyin, a 7 year old boy who fed his farm animals so well, and enjoyed himself so much while playing the Chiyawa game. At first, he couldn’t really find which game he felt most comfortable playing till he was directed to try out the Chiyawa game table. This coincidentally was the game he loved every second playing.
This was such a day for these kids, doing something entirely differently from the ‘usual’ in a church setting, I bet this moment will linger on in their memory, we, once again are so grateful to the nibcard team for providing the games, one of the children actually wondered if we can add this kind of activity fit into our monthly or quarterly plan. A strong argument in support of this is currently being put up as we saw how the children enjoyed themselves, played against one another, interacted so casually, challenged themselves to think outside the box and loosen up.