MEET
The women
Today we meet Érika Haydn, from São Paulo, Brasil. Many adjectives could describe Érika but she is best known for being a fierce mancala player and a comitted woman in the pursue of social and women equality inside and outside the mancala board.
Érika and I came across in the beginning of 2025. We could have never met, but I saw her playing and training online, playing mancala tournaments one week after another, especially Oware (Awelé), and I contacted her. Since then to today, we are not only close friends but also board rivals. Mostly, we share views about social justice and women equality.
Haydn is a physical education teacher in a school in São Paulo. She teaches her students about physical sports and completes their education with abstract board games, particularly Oware/Awelé.
She is also a teacher of Awelé and Chess since 2015 for other school and university teachers, being one of the main promoters of abstracts games in the State of São Paulo and a trainter at the State University of São Paulo.
Beyond her achievements in developing abstract games, she is also a national and international mancala athlete herself, both online and in person. In recent years she has participated in the Local Teacher’s Tournament of Anbstract Games in São Paulo (Brazil, 2019, 2022, 2024), the II International Tournament of Mind Sports in Cali (Colombia, 2024), as well as the 29th eduition of the Mind Sports Olympiad in London (UK, 2025).
An Awelé enthusiast, she is also very fond and passionate of chess, which she has been playing for around 15 years, and has obtained multiple medals, having achieved as well one of her dreams, meeting the international master Natasha Reagan and playing awelé with her in the 2025 MSO. But she does not stop there, she is also training in other mancala games such as Togyzqumalaq and Bestemshe, as well as other abstracts such as Go and Draughts (many variants).
In our interview, I asked her what brought her to Awelé; in her words:
“I discovered Awelé from my reseach about African Cultures, and I was delighted with its strategic depth and symbolic value. I perceived that the game coul turn into a powerful pedagogic possibility. From then, I use it in the school curriculum in Physical Education in other teachers’ training.”
Érika’s curiosity for history, entangled with social justice and her political being makes her passionate about mancala games: “what i like the most is the opportunity for a inter-cultural dialogue, the different strategies and the always present culture and philosophy in the game”.
However, she does not have a favourite mancala game, because “each game has its own charm”.
Regarding Women in Mancala, her views are clear and sharp. She admires a lot of women athletes around the world, particularly athletes Vivian Viegas of Brazil, Assel Daliyeva of Kazakhstan and Andrea Arteaga from Ecuador and Sara González Merinero from Spain (that is me – thanks Érika!)
She also gives her admiration to the women that are teachers in Brazil and use Awelé to promote empowerment and cultural recognition.
Érika is especially fond of Glenda Trew, vice-president of the Oware Society and Oware Master, which has participated in competitions, trainings and organization of tournaments and events of Oware for more than 26 years, to whom she refers as “an example of feminine leadership in Mancala”.
Digging deeply in the question of women participation in mancala, she recalls that “in São Paulo, women participation has been increasing constantly in the past years. Women are participating both in the athletic part of it, competitions, as well as the formative part, training and education events”.
Moreover, on this issue, Haydn also recalls that in recent months, a student at an Awelé training in the University of São Paulo told her about the importance of women presence in competitive environments, which gives visibility to other women and encourages them to participate in tournamentes and competition.
As is traditional of the interview to Women in Mancala, I ask her about the advice she would give to girls nad young women interested in mancala games, to what she responded: “Play with courage, study and believe that the board also belong to you”.
On the question of things that need change for Women in Mancala, she said that she “believes that there is little feminine representation in leadership positions and in historical recogniztion of the role of women in mancala games”, so she would like to see more women acting as referees, technical trainers and organizers of competitions.
To finish the interview she remarks that:
“Playing is a political and cultural act, and by ‘political’ I mean acting in society and building citizenship within the collective, not party politics. When a woman plays and teaches, she opens paths for others, creating intercultural encounters, moments of strategic reflection, and environments for female empowerment. My work in games seeks precisely to promote these opportunities and value women’s participation.”
Érika Haydn is a Woman in Mancala that trascends the sphere of the games themselves. She makes Mancala games advance for all of women with her skills, comittment and pursue of women representation at both her national level and the international arena.
