A total of 146 students under the age of 19, took part in the Nairobi Regional qualifiers held at Statehouse girls over the weekend, where several prizes were won. The turn-out was a great improvement from the recently concluded Eastern region qualifier which attracted 64 students.
Our lady of Consolata Mugoiri Girls, Kabare Girls, Karima Girls, Statehouse Girls, Kahuho Uhuru High School, Moi Mbiruri High School, Baricho High School, Kahuhia girls, Ndururumo highschool, Nova Pioneer and St Anne’s High School all took part in the event. It was interesting to note that the majority of the players were from the Central region and they showed their intent from the word go.
With such an uptake to the game, Team Kenya promises to field a worthy team against other African countries in the first-ever African Youth Championship to be held in Lagos later in August. This Championship will bring together some of the youngest sharp minds all over Africa. Currently, Nigeria is Kenya’s greatest rival.
Scrabble Kenya chairman, Limo Kipkemoi had this to say, “We are moving in the right direction. It’s good to see such huge turnouts in qualifiers. We hope to have adequate representation in the upcoming tournaments.”
Youth Patron Bernard Amuke reiterated by applauding the effort. He had this to say, “Great tournament, unfortunately only three schools from Nairobi attended the tournament. We are working to increase the numbers and have a training program in place to help improve on the game standards.”
By the end of the two-day tournament, the students had played 12 games against each other. Alila Olive from Kabare girls emerged in position one with 10.5 points, Mwenja Brandon from Kagumo high school was in position two with 10 points, and Mugecha Kenneth from Mbiruri high school with 10 points.
Moi Mbiruri has crowned the best school, followed by Kabare and Kagumo respectively. Ricky Ronnie from Kahuho Uhuru was the best student in the Under 15 category.
The National youth championship will be held on June 10.
