Cycle Sisters is the largest cycling charity for Muslim women and girls in the UK and our work has been recognised by multiple awards, including the Community Impact Award at the London Sports Awards.  We are passionate about ensuring that all Muslim women and girls have access to the life-changing benefits of cycling without having to compromise their religious or cultural values.

 The UK Muslim community is the least active faith group, with women and girls particularly under-represented, and faces resulting health inequalities e.g. diabetes, cancer, obesity.  This group also experiences other inequalities e.g. more likely to be in poverty, with nearly half of the Muslim population living in the bottom 10% of England’s most deprived Local Authority Districts, and 3x more likely to live in areas with high pollution.  Cycling has proven health and wellbeing benefits as well as significant potential to help address climate change and air pollution. But there is unequal access to cycling - it is typically white and male-dominated and there is a lack of culturally-inclusive opportunities for Muslim women and girls to participate.  Barriers include: financial, cultural, confidence/skills, family/home commitments, lack of role models, fears around discrimination, racism and Islamophobia.  Unlocking cycling for Muslim women and girls is life-changing.   We have found that it significantly improves health and wellbeing and increases confidence by opening up opportunities which people thought were not possible for them.