A journalist who moved from Poland to the United Kingdom three months ago has joined a regional daily under the Facebook-funded community reporting scheme.

The Oxford Mail has announced the appointment of Stanislaw Skarzynski, left, who is originally from Warsaw but now lives near Bicester.

Stanislaw, 36, has been a journalist for ten years at various news outlets in Poland and has a background in political reporting.

A total of 80 community news journalists across the UK are being funded for two-year fixed-term contracts by a £4.5m charitable donation from Facebook to the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

Stanislaw, who will now also work towards gaining NCTJ qualifications, told the Mail: “Politics is my natural area of expertise but by being a community reporter I will be able to link it to the bigger picture and see whether people in their homes and local communities are really connected to politics. I’ll get to see politics from a different side – from the people’s point of view.”

He added: “There is no question that social media is heavily responsible for local press decline but the key is to reach the local communities, especially the ones that are under-represented. I hope to make the audience believe and feel that this paper is theirs.”

Stanislaw recently worked as a fact checker at Sova.news and was the managing editor of the opinion section at Gazeta Wyborcza, the largest liberal daily magazine in Poland, as well as working previously for radio station Radio Zet.

He has also been a public relations specialist at Poczta Polska (The Polish Post) magazine as a speech-writer, press statements author, journalist and supervisor.

Mail publisher Newsquest has also recently announced several other appointments under the scheme.

Elly Roberts, 26, has joined the Swindon Advertiser, Cat Cochrane, 42, has joined the Glasgow Evening Times, Elizabeth Birt, 25, has joined the South Wales Argus and Toby Emes, 19, has joined the company’s Essex titles.