A general mobilisation of skills for Ukraine
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Anna Osti knew she had to help. Like many Ukrainian ex-pats in the EU, she had this combined sense of, on the one hand, premonition and on the other, disbelief that it was actually happening. Anna and her German husband had managed to get her parents out of the country just days before the invasion but all other family remained around Kyiv and Dnipro.
“I came to Germany 17 years ago, when I was 19, as an au-pair. I came for a year, met my future husband and never really looked back.”
“I felt at home here, but if my first time in Germany taught me anything, it was how much even a basic knowledge of the local language means for your chances to study and work. When I decided to stay here, I had to first convert my entry requirements for university and take an extra year in college before I could enrol at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. This all involved improving my German. In fact, I ended up choosing subjects that required the least of my language skills.”
Anna ended up studying business economics.
For refugees arriving from Ukraine, the basic premise was the same as it had been for her: many came with a mountain of knowledge and qualifications that were in demand in Germany but could not be put to good use because they did not speak the language.
For Anna, the arrival of the first refugees coincided with a need to review her career after she had become a mother. The start of the war literally came a few days before the end of her maternity leave.
“In Ukraine people mobilised for volunteering work immediately. It was no different for us here. We cried for a week, stuck to the news on our phones, and then realised that we had to do something – regardless of what, anything other than reading the news – both to help and to keep our sanity.”
“I had worked for several German companies in Munich, but now with small children, I did not want the long commuting times anymore, so when the first refugees arrived, I volunteered to work as an interpreter, mediating between the incoming Ukrainians and local host families.”
“Over time, I developed a network of people who called on me for assistance with all sorts of small issues. In fact, so much so, that it became untenable. These people had to learn German themselves.”
Anna called on the local Volkshochschule (adult education centre) in Landsberg am Lech to ask what they could do. The initial answer was a bit depressing: people could apply for basic German courses but at the moment there weren’t really any.
Even though she did not have any pedagogical qualifications, she then wondered if she could do it herself.
“I was teaching my parents German anyway. Why should I not teach ten people at the same time?”
The Volkshochschule was all ears. They would offer the facilities if she did the rest. And so she did.
Her first class of 16 filled in ten minutes. Everyone was eager to learn. She taught from the standard book for learning German as a foreign language, Schritte Plus.
When the Volkshochschule realised how big the demand was, they found three more teachers for intensive courses.
But Anna realised that even that was still was only a drop in the ocean and the demand was much bigger than they could ever satisfy. That’s when she started recording all her language instruction to YouTube.
“Young people learn at lightning speed when they are inundated, but the problem was middle-aged and older people. They never thought they would have to learn a new language again. There was much resistance but also recognition that it was needed. For these people, to receive the first instruction from someone who also spoke their first language helped so much!”
Anna started recording to YouTube in June and the first videos have already racked up around 2000 views. She also has a faithful group of subscribers, because her new uploads are watched immediately by almost a hundred people.
“Everyone wants to go back, even my mother – to a point where I sometimes don’t understand it. But, until that day comes, giving them the language tools they need to live here makes their lives so much more meaningful here and I know that some young people who have already returned to Ukraine have kept it up back home and are now continuing to learn German in Ukraine.”
That shows how the work of people like Anna Osti does more than just help refugees in Germany in the short term. Eventually it can also sow the first seeds of deeper links between Germany and Ukraine that may become quite crucial as the country must reorient alliances after forcefully having severed centuries-old traditional eastbound lines of cooperation.