Dear all, We the below mentioned Penholders, on behalf of the ATLAS III awardees, refer to the announcement of the ATLAS III travel support selected participants, among which are 19 people from Africa. Aside being selected, the intended purpose of training future leaders for At Large cannot be achieved if the selected participants can not get visas to attend the scheduled conference and training during the ICANN 66 at Montreal in Canada. It must be indicated that getting visas to Canada from our various embassies across Africa is cumbersome. In this regard, we wish to make the following suggestions on behalf of all the African 19 delegates, which can make it easier for us to get our visas: 1. ICANN or the host entity to write directly to the various embassies of the selected participants well in advance to introduce the participants. There must be acknowledgement for receipt of this introduction letters from the embassies. 2. The various invitation letters must clearly indicate that ICANN is fully sponsoring the participants, listing that airfare, accommodation and stipend will be fully provided to each participant. This is very important because the embassies would like to know if the participants can have enough funds for the trip. In fact, it’s even a requirement for the participants to provide their bank account statement showing evidence of enough funds, hence if it’s indicated that the participants are going to be fully sponsored the better. It must be noted that acquiring the visa can take close to 12 weeks in some countries, hence, the earlier the processes are started, including implementing the above mentioned suggestions, the better for the African delegates to get their visas and attend the trainings. We are counting on your utmost support in this regard. Raymond Selorm Mamattah Remmy Nweke Peters Omoragbon (Penholders on behalf of Afralo ATLAS III awardees)