Group formed in Cumbria with aim of stamping out racism

In the months since the Black Lives Matter movement swept across the world, a group has formed in Cumbria with the aim of stamping out racism locally.

Janett Walker, the co-founder and chair of Anti-Racist Cumbria, told ITV Border: "Our mission statement is to tackle and end racism by education and action in Cumbria.

"Racism is a big problem everywhere. It's not that overt racism that we remember from the 60s and 70s - this racism is much more subtle and therefore much more dangerous.

"It's more the micro-aggressions and the unconscious racism that people tend to have."

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The group launched on Monday and Janett says people are already showing their support. She said: "On our Facebook page we are up to 500 likes.

"Our team is up to around 80 and are a mix of black, white, brown and minority people. People are behind it. Already we have an event coming up and people are signing up to that. It's really encouraging to see that in such early days.

Janett's hope is for racism to be completely stamped out, but says it won't be in her lifetime: "I would like to say in my children's lifetime - my girls are eight and ten at the moment - I'd like to see that unconscious bias and prejudices that people have about black, brown and minority people are eradicated.

"We'll measure that by tackling systemic racism in all sectors of our communities."

• Find out more here.