Help Mia Make Her Paris 2024 Dreams Come True

First gen American, daughter of a refugee, Para Dressage rider, advocate, assault survivor, unashamed. Mia Rodier-Dawallo is a Grade II international Para Dressage competitor, a Persian-American, a survivor, and a rising star. In addition to being an instructor and a clinician for both Para and non-Para Dressage riders, she is the 2022 Para Dressage National Champion, a USEF Development Athlete ranked 4th in the FEI World Individual Ranking in her grade for Team USA, ranked 29th in the WORLD for grade II, and is a serious contender for Paris 2024. And she is well on her way to making her dreams of Olympic proportions come true.

It has been Mia's goal to represent Team USA Dressage in the Olympics since she was very young. Mia describes it as, “The first dream I’ve ever had and one that I have never and will never give up on.” Her whole life changed forever in 2013 when she survived a brutal assault that left her with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and a myriad of other disabilities. She had to relearn how to speak, read, and write at a functional level. She describes it as “her hard drive being wiped clean and having to start my entire life over from nothing.” But that didn’t stop her from getting back on a horse; it only made her more determined. Immediately following her assault, she wasn’t making much progress in traditional clinical physical, speech, and occupational therapy. So, she started Equine Assisted Therapy (Hippotherapy) at Ride On Therapeutic Horsemanship in Newbury Park, CA. She made more progress in Hippotherapy in a month than she did after six months of traditional clinical therapy. She was regaining many of her motor skills that had been lost during the assault and healing mentally from the trauma.

Then, her life took another sudden turn. In 2015, on her way back home from Hippotherapy, she was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Although she is thankful to have escaped with her life, she suffered another TBI and lost her ability to walk. Her husband recounts that while still in the hospital following the car accident, the first question Mia asked her doctor was, “So when can I ride again?” She didn’t skip a beat. She got right back in the saddle– not only for Hippotherapy but now, as a competitor in Para Dressage.

Now, she is in serious contention for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris in 2024, and she is closer than ever to making her dreams come true. If she qualifies, she will be the first-ever Person of Color to represent the United States at any Olympic or Paralympic Games. She uses her platform to be an avid advocate for people with disabilities, people struggling with PTSD and mental illness, intersectional feminism, assault survivors, and People of Color. She hopes to inspire other disabled women and girls of color to achieve their dreams no matter how steep of a mountain there is to climb.

It is easy to feel invisible when you don't fit the mold, and it is even easier to feel erased when you struggle and your trauma is invisible too. But Mia speaks fondly about words of wisdom she has received from her “Baba'' through actions and the wise words of Rumi. Her favorite being, "تو با بال به دنیا آمدی. شما هرگز در زندگی نخواهید خزید." “You were born with wings. You will never crawl through life.”