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Sellafield Ltd has refreshed its social impact programme and announced its first investment.

Sellafield Ltd’s social impact programme has been refreshed and relaunched as SIx – social impact, multiplied.

Its first investment will be Transforming West Cumbria, a £2.2 million fund to help West Cumbria’s most vulnerable communities.

SIx is a new approach to social impact which prioritises projects co-created with the community and stakeholders.

It recognises that more can be achieved in partnership and that impact can be multiplied through collaboration.

Social Impact, Multiplied

Transforming West Cumbria will take on West Cumbria’s most entrenched social and economic problems. Sellafield Ltd and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) are funding the initiative, which will be delivered by Cumbria Community Foundation (CCF).

It aims to put local people in charge of their own futures by empowering neighbourhoods to create transformational change.

The West Cumbria challenge

• higher than average poverty rates
• more than 20,000 people in debt
• 10,000 households with an income of less than £10,000 a year
• 3,900 children living in poverty
• more children in care than in any other part of Cumbria
• teenagers achieve fewer GCSEs than the national average
• high levels of youth unemployment
• one in four people over 16 years has no qualifications
• low rates of business and social enterprise start-ups

The programme will focus on family wellbeing, financial education, community activism, and inspiring young people.

Among the initiatives are:

• a £1.3 million fund for community and voluntary groups
• £660,000 to support families
• £175,000 to fund financial education
• schemes to nurture young entrepreneurs
• and a drive to make community activism the norm for young people

It has been developed to address issues identified in CCF’s West Cumbria: Opportunities and Challenges report.

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