Pride in North Cumbria Receive £350,000 National Lottery Grant

The National Lottery continues to help deserving causes thanks to ticket purchases. An LGBT+ youth group in Carlisle in North Cumbria, England is celebrating receiving a grant of £375,181. The additional funding will help them in their “life-saving work.”

Pride in North Cumbria(PiNC) will receive the National Lottery funding over a period of five years. The amounts received will put towards the projects they carry out. In addition, it will help them meet staff and running costs.

The group have a busy but highly important schedule. This includes running youth groups and drop-in sessions for those aged 13-25 as well as other services. The PiNC have said that they are “so grateful to the National Lottery Fund for seeing the importance in the work we do for LGBTQ+ people in Cumbria and awarding us the funds to keep our vital centre open.”

Very Vital Service

Their Project Manager is Pam Eland, and she says that the services they offer to the LGBT+ community are “very vital” and “life-saving.”

 A report that was published three years ago said that one in eight LGBT people aged between 18 and 24 had attempted to commit suicide in the past 12 months.

The YouGov research also revealed that 52 percent had suffered from depression. These problems continue in 2021 and life has been difficult for the community during the pandemic.  The Project Manager said that people “need to be made more aware of LGBT issues.”

"It doesn't matter where you are. There's always going to be issues, especially in minority communities because people just want to discriminate,” she added.

New Staff Recruited

Thanks to the National Lottery funding, they have been able to take on new staff and open five days a week. This allows them to help “any LGBT+ person who needs out help." It’s particularly good news as they launch a “WHY PRIDE?” project in June which is Pride month. The project will last for four months with workshops and events that will explore why Pride started.

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