A community group has been awarded a grant to increase the awareness of dementia.

One Voice which is based in Bangor St Community Centre, Blackburn was awarded the Remember the Times Project from the Aviva Community Fund which will be used to create an extra 1000 dementia friends by the end of 2019.

A Dementia Friends Champion is a volunteer who encourages others to make a positive difference to people living with dementia in their community.

They do this by giving them information about the personal impact of dementia, and what they can do to help.

A Dementia Friend learns a little bit more about what it's like to live with dementia and then turns that understanding into action - anyone of any age can be a Dementia Friend. You usually become a Dementia friend by attending a face-to-face Dementia Friends Information Session delivered by a Champion.

The nationwide initiative, now in its forth year, called upon local supporters to champion a project in their area to be in with a chance of securing funding ranging from £1,000 up to £25,000.

Each organisation had to galvanise the support of their local community to vote for their entry in one of three categories: Health and Wellbeing, Skills for Life & Environment.

Over 4 million votes were placed this year, with over 2,000 local projects benefitting from the funding since the Aviva Community Fund was established. One Voices project reached nearly 5,000 votes.

Zaffer Khan, Chief Executive Officer at One Voice Blackburn said, “We are absolutely thrilled to have received this good news for the people of Blackburn and Darwen who will be the beneficiaries of this award.

"As an organisation we have created over 500 dementia friends in the local area and this funding will allow us to create another 1,000. We would like to wholeheartedly thank all those people who voted for us. This project has the potential to save lives.”