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Outlook: The chess game that changed a homeless boy’s life

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Tani Adewumi

02/09/2020 GMT

The chess game that changed a homeless boy’s life

BBC World Service - Outlook, The chess game that changed a homeless boy’s life

Tani Adewumi fled Nigeria and became a chess champion in New York at just eight years old

After fleeing Nigeria Tani Adewumi and his family were living in a homeless shelter in the US. But Tani’s chess brilliance at just eight years old would turn everything around.

Tani Adewumi and his family fled their home in Nigeria under threat from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. They ended up living in a homeless shelter in New York. It was there Tani discovered a talent for chess. At eight years old, and just one year after he started playing the game, Tani won the New York State Championship for his age group. Tani, his elder brother Austin, his mother Oluwatoyin and father Kayode tell Emily Webb how it all happened.

Carole Bayer Sager is an award-winning American songwriter whose hundreds of songs have been performed by people like Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin. She co-wrote some of the songs with Burt Bacharach, who she was married to for ten years. She tells Outlook's Tim Allen how she got into music in the first place...growing up in New York city.

Picture: Tani Adewumi
Credit: Micah Kandros

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