We provide working bikes to refugees and people seeking asylum who live in Sheffield, so that they have a way of getting around. We also help them keep the bikes on the road and in good condition.
Please check out this page to learn the facts about people seeking asylum in the UK, as unfortunately this is something that the news often doesn’t report accurately or fairly.
How it works
Our project is run entirely by volunteers. We collect and store donated bikes. We also keep a stock of used bike bits (brakes, gears, wheels, tyres, as well as other bits and pieces), and some new parts too (Brake blocks, cables, and the like).
We accept referrals from charities working with asylum seekers in Sheffield, via this page.
Once referred to us, we allocate a suitable sized bike which has been fully refurbished from our stock of donated bikes.
Once people have a bike, they are welcome to return to us in the future for help with any maintenance / repairs. We can provide some basic tools (pump puncture kit etc) if the client wants to do some maintenance at home.
We provide everyone with a lock, lights, high-vis jacket and offer everyone a helmet.
We rely on periodic grants, as well as occasional donations to keep everything going.
Come along and help
We try to help as many asylum seekers as we can, but the current limiting factor on how many bikes we can provide, is the number of volunteers we can call on. If you would like to help out then visit our volunteering section and sign up. We can use volunteers with very basic bike mending skills, but obviously the more mechanical skills you have the more useful you will be to the project – expect your mechanicing skills to rapidly increase as you spend time working on the project.