About the program
Más allá del tablero
Fundación Más Que Vencedores (MQV) is an organization based in Santa Marta, Magdalena, founded in 2018 by Fernando Pavón in the Gaira neighborhood, starting with ten kids and one chessboard. Of note, Fernando is the leader of the Chess League of Magdalena and is certified by the Colombian Federation of Chess. The organization reaches approximately 150 children annually.
MQV's belief that chess can teach kids far more than checkmates anchors its mission: using the game to build strategic thinking and emotional resilience in children living in some of Santa Marta's most vulnerable communities.
Más allá del tablero (Beyond the Chessboard) is a program that launched July 2026, in five public schools across Santa Marta: Nuestra Señora de Fátima, Liceo del Norte, Bastidas, El Pando, and Francisco de Paula Santander. Over four months, it will reach 100 children ages 8 to 17, at least a third of them girls, through three sequential levels of chess instruction (basic, intermediate, advanced), each lasting about 40 days.
Every session pairs 30 minutes of emotional and psychosocial development with 30 minutes of technical chess instruction and an hour of supervised practice matches, building toward biweekly training tournaments and a closing tournament.
