Urgently Invite Trhas For Her Asylum Interview So She Can Compete At World Championships

Dear Home Secretary,

We the signatories ask you to urgently grant an asylum interview to help make a young female athlete’s dream come true so she can travel to the World Championships this September and join the Refugee Team.

For the past nine months our two charities, West London Welcome and Team Africa Rising, have been supporting Trhas Teklehaimanot Tesfay, known to us by her nickname, 'TT'. She is 22 years old and Ethiopia’s National Road Cycling Champion.

We first met Trhas when she was living in an asylum hotel, was very quiet and subdued, studiously focused on her English lessons but noticeably traumatised by her past and frightened about her uncertain future. She didn't have a bike and hadn't ridden in months but someone gave her a gym pass and she was working out 4 hours a day in an effort to keep fit. 

Through our joint media efforts the BBC, The Guardian, Cycling Weekly and several others picked up her story - see the attached BBC News clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIbTTr-d1DM

She recently met Jon Dutton OBE, the President of British Cycling, and his organisation kindly granted her a racing license, vital to compete in the UK. Our charities got her a bike and all the kit and she's been racing regularly since May and last month she won her first race on UK soil! 

Trhas is a changed person; always smiling, she has hope and optimism, trains constantly and has a race most weekends. War, conflict and her gender have all thrown obstacles in her way but this woman is a survivor and incredibly determined.

Cycling's global governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has invited her to join the Refugee Team at the World Championships, being held in Switzerland on 21-29 September 2024. Time is running out for her to be confirmed as taking part, and we are appealing to you to help make this happen.

We are simply asking for her to be granted her substantive (asylum) interview. We have great hope and belief she will get a positive decision on her asylum claim and be granted refugee status. Then she can get a travel document and fly to Switzerland for this world class event in mid September. 

We feel confident that, should she be granted asylum, she will go on to have a brilliant career in the UK where she is safe and can thrive as a top female athlete. Her being granted asylum and consequently attending the World Championships would be an incredibly positive and inspirational story, not just for our community, but also for refugee sportspeople of colour - echoing the huge impact this summer of her former cycling colleague and close friend, Biniam Girmay - the first Black person to win three stages at Tour De France.

This is the moment for Black and African cyclists. 
https://teamafricarising.org/teamtrhasblog/