We are young Afghan female cyclists with permanent residence in the UK. Having been forced to flee persecution, just because of our love for cycling In our home country of Afghanistan, it is a crime, for girls to participate in sport. Since the Taliban take over in August 2021, girls are forbidden to play sport or to continue their education. Girls can no longer walk alone, without a male chaperone, go to the beach or play become musicians suffocating all girls. Leaving us with no future. Even to buy a loaf of bread we must cover our faces, only revealing our eyes. One day our country was civilised the next day – not!
The Taliban have removed all women’s basic rights. Sadly, we had to leave our families behind which was extremely sad for us. We arrived in the United Kingdom in late, October 2022 as refugees, after hiding for one year in fear of our lives.
To become professional cyclists we train under the guidance of professional coaches “Dave George’ and Iffat Tejani’. We also study full-time at Brunel University, with great support from the charity ' Help Children Now’ who campaigned for our freedom and resettlement in the UK. We still need your help! To help us rebuild and shape our lives as competitive athletes.
In 2023 you kindly donated and supported us to reach our goals of entering the June Asian Road Cycling Championships – Women’s Time-Trial - Olympic Qualifier, held in Rayong, Thailand and in August we completed at the UCI World Championships held in Glasgow. All proceeds raised will help us reach our ultimate dream of entering the Olympics in 2028. We had hoped to qualify for Paris 2024 but we needed more time to prepare for the refugee Olympic team and for the British government to issue our refugee status having fled persecution.
We still need your kind help with donations to help us with our next step to of training. To become eligible for the US Los Angeles 2028 Olympics we need to continue entering races. So this year one of our team members Arefa will enter as part of the Afghan cycling federation - 'The Asian World Road Championships held in Kazakhstan' 5th June 2024 to compete with worldwide professionals and our team will enter the 2025 UCI world championships in Chile as well as UK races.
Please donate what you can afford to enable Arefa to enter the 'Asian World Road Cycling Championships in Kazakhstan’. Please share our go fund me link its the only way we can continue to support our lives, our Univeristy education and cycling & training. Thank you.
https://gofund.me/80006beb