Czech influencer Shopaholic Nicol’s recent visit to eastern Ukraine
Published: Dec 10, 2019 Reading time: 1 minute
Nikola Čechová, known to her social-media fans as Shopaholic Nicol, is lending her influence online to raise awareness for the plight of people in eastern Ukraine. Nikola recently joined People in Need on a visit to Slavyansk and to villages along the “line of contact,” where people are living their sixth-consecutive year in a conflict area.
Nikola is not an aid worker, but with 721,000 followers on Instagram and 470,000 subscribers on YouTube, she still has the power to help by sharing information about Europe’s forgotten war. All of her followers had a chance to read stories from eastern Ukraine, where People in Need works with partners from the ACCESS consortium, which is funded by EU Humanitarian Aid.
Nikola met Galina in the village of Travneve, which is less than a kilometer from the frontline. People in Need delivers drinking water here. After the war started, villagers’ access to potable water became imperiled because the well was on the other side of the contact line.
Since it began in 2014, the conflict in eastern Ukraine has directly affected 5.2 million people. As fighting continues for the sixth year in Donbas, an estimated 3.5 million men, women and children are in need of humanitarian assistance.
The ACCESS Consortium will continue to deliver timely and critical humanitarian assistance to 85,000 people across the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, with support from the European Union.
