What is Oware?

Oware is a traditional Ghanaian board game that's over 4,000 years old! It's a mathematical strategy game played on a wooden board with 12 pits and seeds or stones. Two players take turns moving seeds to capture their opponent's seeds, promoting critical thinking and problem-solving.

Benefits of Playing Oware

 

The simplicity of Oware & depth is its beauty and is what has made it stand the test of time: from the simple materials utilised to play the game, the simplicity of its rules and movements on the board, mirroring the orbits of the planets around the sun or seasons of the year. It is these attributes that makes the lessons it has to teach so attainable and valuable, not being drowned out by complicated rules. This above all other games makes it a great educational tool, not just for academic qualities but for life in general.

Oware is great fun, simple to learn and of enormous benefit in improving children’s numeracy and cognitive skills. It is also a great cohesive tool to bind communities & generations together, engaged in a common activity.

Playing Oware enhances the cognitive skills and hones strategic thinking,
Oware can be used to engage individuals (students) who have concentration issues.
It is an excellent tool of communication, with anecdotal evidence of it enabling
communication among people who do not speak or understand each other’s
language.

 

For thousands of years Oware has been used as an educational tool for children in Africa and all over the planet. Many academic authorities and educationalists have trumpeted the educational value of the game and have called for it to be utilised in schools. Today it is indeed recognised as an excellent educational tool and is being taken up by an increasing number of schools for their extracurricular activities.