23-year-old WFM Ailen Oriana Mena from Curaçao (an island belonging to Netherlands Antilles – an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands) was a Women’s Curaçao National Champion for six consecutive times (2013-2018) and she is one of the best rated women players of Netherlands Antilles. After the Netherlands Antille Chess Federation decided to send Men’s Team to the 44th Chess Olympiad 2022 in Chennai, WFM Ailen Oriana Mena sent an official letter to her federation asking for explanation why is the Women’s team excluded.
“On Saturday 23rd of April 2022, I made my official claim to the Curaçao Chess Federation, sending a letter rejecting my exclusion from the Olympic Team and the lack of interest in sending a Women’s Team to the Olympiad. The federation has not responded to my messages in any way”- she explains in the Facebook post, adding: “They do not want to dialogue. Here I share my letter, and I am thankful in advance for any possible diffusion that could be generated to make the case public and be able to find a solution.“.
Herewith is enclosed the full letter WFM Ailen Oriana Mena sent to Netherlands Antille Chess Federation (scroll down for the full article):
The Netherlands Antille Chess Federation didn’t respond to Ailen’s letter so she decided to start an initiative of building the Women’s Curacao Team and get the funds to reach Chennai:
“As some of you are probably already familiar with, a week ago on Monday 25th of April I wrote a claim letter to my Federation and made it public since I was not getting any response from them (still haven’t). That same day I got to talk to a lot of people who wanted to help and gave me advice, so here I am with this new initiative. This initiative consists of building the Female Team myself and trying to get the funds with a campaign so we can go to the Chess Olympiad in Chennai 2022. In order to get there, we will need around $3000 per player plus 1 captain. I really don’t want us to miss this Olympiad in the year of Women in Chess by FIDE because of the lack of funds, so I am trying to collect as much as I can to support my team and also the Women in Chess. Here I am leaving the link for more details about the donations in case that you want to collaborate! https://esponsor.gg/ailenmena I will be very thankful for any type of support you can give to it!” – she wrote on her Facebook account altogether with the list of the Curaçao women players who would represent their country in the upcoming Olympiad if they manage to collect enough funds to go to Chennai.
Curaçao Women’s Team:
The initiative was also published in “Mundu Deportivo” – Curaçao’s biggest newspaper.
