Storm Boris: Bishop’s Stortford broadcaster Aleksandra Fiddler rallies fellow Poles to help flood victims

A Polish resident of Bishop’s Stortford is mobilising her compatriots to help the victims of devastating floods in their homeland.

For the past four-and-a-half years, Aleksandra Fiddler has run an independent news show on Facebook called Breakfast News.

Storm Boris has caused flooding in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Austria, and at least 21 people have died.

Aleksandra’s show has an audience of 180,000 Polish people living in the UK and each episode is watched by up to 100,000 followers, so she was determined to use her platform to help – and £160,000 was generated in the first 40 hours.

She told supporters: “Unprecedented rainfall has resulted in massive floods in south-western regions of Poland. The government has introduced the state of natural disaster.

“Many towns and villages are completely flooded, houses wiped off the surface of the earth and hospital corridors submerged to knee-depth.

“The Polish community in the UK cannot physically help prepare sandbags or flood defences due to the physical distance. But we can collect money that will help to deal with the aftermath of the floods.

“A lot of us have families or loved ones in the flooded areas. Many of them have lost everything, including possessions and houses. Lots of areas do not have access to clean drinking water or electricity.”

Aleksandra’s collection is part of a national flood campaign organised by the Się Pomaga charity.

She said: “Our hearts go to our fellow countrymen, our families and those who are in this terrible situation.”

The 47-year-old qualified English teacher and former court and police interpreter has lived in Stortford for seven years with husband Paul and their teenage son.

Her campaign has come to the attention of Polish media and she has been interviewed by three television channels and one newspaper in her homeland.

She said: “I am from a place called Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. This area has not been affected and none of my family were. But the scale of devastation in the south west, coupled with my huge online reach, meant that I had to get involved.”

To support the Polish flood victims, see https://wiadomosci.co.uk/articles/devastating-floods-in-south-western-poland-you-can-help.

Storm Boris caused a deluge in large parts of Europe at the weekend. Slovakia’s capital Bratislava and Hungarian capital Budapest have been preparing for the flooding to hit as the River Danube rises. There are fears Italy will be affected too.