TO SHARE IS NOURISHING

03/08/2019 By Abraham Regunta

Oscar Del Cid is 12 years old studying in Grade 7. He has been a regular at the evening program for more than six months. He is by nature very calm, shy, a boy of very few words and someone conducts himself in a dignified manner. I taught him chess almost instantly after I got to know him. We have been playing chess regularly since then and on many occasions, I have found myself squarely beaten by him.

This week the evening program started at the Collegium as usual. The board games were placed at different locations in the Café. It was busy with people from all age groups well represented. A little while later Javier who is 8 years old and a regular at the Collegium approached me and asked me if I could teach him Chess. Since I was consumed with a task at the time, so I asked Oscar if he would be willing to teach Javier the basics of Chess. He readily agreed! It was wonderful to see him spend more than 45-minutes teaching Javier. He displayed lots of patience and appeared to be enjoying the opportunity to impart his knowledge to someone like Javier. I asked him how he felt teaching Javier. He said it felt good and smiled. His response was very indicative of his personality.

It felt good to see Oscar teach Javier the basics of Chess. Javier was clearly enjoying the game and was also very excited. We are so used to seeing the kids of this generation engrossed to their phones. It felt wonderful to see Oscar investing his time to teach Javier. We are all born with unique talents and gifts. What is important is how we are able to use those gifts to help others. The Center for Sharing thrives on this simple but powerful concept that can nurture communities to become self-resilient.