YOUNG people are to get a say on how funding is used in West Cumbria.

Cumbria Community Foundation is honouring its commitment to represent young voices by opening an advisory panel of young people.

A panel of 14 people between the ages of 16 and 25 will work with the foundation on the #CanDo project.

The foundation is working with youth groups to select young people for the panel.

The scheme, as part of Transforming West Cumbria, will award cash grants of £5,000 to projects that benefit young people. Successful ones will raise aspirations and build confidence by engaging young people in “meaningful social and environmental action”, empowering young people from disadvantaged communities to volunteer, and encourage young people to have a voice and improve their communities.

The scheme is part of a wider £2.2 million invested by Sellafield Ltd and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority into local communities over a three-year period.

Transforming West Cumbria will run under Sellafield’s social impact programme, Social Impact Multiplied.

Annalee Holliday, grants and donor services officer at Cumbria Community Foundation, said: “This programme will help young people to develop their character, confidence, resilience, sense of wellbeing, and raise their aspirations.

“Research suggests that the higher the quality of the social action, the more likely it is to benefit both the young people involved and the communities or causes they are trying to help.”

#CanDo has been matched by the national #iWill Fund which aims to make social action part of life for as many young people as possible, distributing investment by working with other funding projects.

Stuart McCourt, the education, community and development lead at Sellafield Limited, said: “We know that many young people in West Cumbria have some fantastic ideas about how they could address some of the social issues within their local communities and the #CanDo programme enables them to turn these ideas into reality and make a real difference. It is a programme for young people with all the decisions made by their peers to ensure any ideas and projects remain free of any presumptions or bias.”

Cumbria Community Foundation was launched in 1999 with the aim of meeting the needs of communities with grant funding.

More information can be found at www.cumbriafoundation.org/transforming-west-cumbria/cando or by calling 01900 825760.