Bureaucratic job vouchers and outdated providers often create more frustration than opportunity—especially for refugees. When publicly funded programs discourage people instead of empowering them, we waste tax money to prop up rigid institutions.
I want to make this entry more positive, because it’s about the so-called labour market policy instrument called AVGS – and AVGS stands for Aktivierungs- und Vermittlungsgutschein, an activation and placement voucher. And here, as so often in life, there are two sides to the coin.
First, the positive one: I first gained experience with this instrument in 2017, 2018 or 2019 or so, when I met Alexander Kühler at an education provider called Robotron Bildung, at its Döbeln branch. Alexander Kühler – very briefly – came to us from the old West German states, after reunification, and has been working ever since, right up to now, as a freelance trainer, lecturer and teacher for education providers, and he already had experience with AVGS. He approached me and asked whether I could speak English, whether I’d be able to help people over the phone, in English, get back on their feet professionally. And I said yes. I then signed a contract with a company that specialises in AVGS coaching nationwide – mostly online, but on site too.
And then I actually had two or three clients. A Vietnamese woman in Berlin – and that wasn’t all that easy. It was a big challenge, because I don’t speak Vietnamese and so I had to communicate through her daughter. So the daughter interpreted for her mum, and the main goal was to introduce her mum, step by step, to digital tools: the basics, in other words – how do I use Windows, how do I use an interface, how do I open an email, how do I write one, and so on. And of course that was a challenge, because I only had the phone to work with: the client did have an internet connection, just not where she was, and her daughter was only ever with her mum briefly, so it wasn’t possible to at least communicate with her by video call. Nevertheless: in the end we worked well together. Her mum got fit enough to at least master the basics – maybe by now she can even write texts herself, compose them herself. So that was the goal with my first AVGS coaching client.
With the second client I had, things didn’t go quite so well. He was a man from East Berlin, I think, about my age. He was very angry, because he couldn’t accept that the Jobcenter wouldn’t pay for a new computer for him. That actually wasn’t the subject of my coaching at all – it was really about getting him fit for the job market again, preparing him to go to job interviews and, before that, of course, to write applications. But he launched straight in by unloading his frustration on me and explaining that he’d filed several applications for funding for a new PC, that he absolutely needed one to be able to carry on, that all he had left was a really old Windows machine – and that he also played games regularly and needed a new computer for that, and so on. So it was very difficult with him, it was only ever possible by phone, and he got abusive very quickly. That’s why I then had to report back to Alexander Kühler that it hadn’t been very successful, and he said right away: “Yes, unfortunately we know. Then we’ll have to pass that on to the Jobcenter, and the Jobcenter will have to take further steps.” And that was, so to speak, my first round as an AVGS coach.
And the second round was a bit more intense. It began in the summer of 2025, when I remembered that a few years earlier, while interpreting for Ukrainian refugees, I’d met Vadym Nastasyuk, and that back then he’d already offered me work at his company – Ancora Coaching. So I took him up on his offer, and he then handed several refugees from Ukraine over to me as clients and gave me the assignment of spending 80 UE with them – 80 Unterrichtseinheiten, 80 hours – intensively, one to one, to accompany them on the path they’re taking here in Germany. And that was very intense, very multifaceted, very positive, because I had the chance to experience very closely what people from Ukraine think, how they feel here, what fears they have, what hopes, what wishes.
And in that short time I came together with some very interesting people. There was my first client in Halle, Svitlana Blaga, who is a lawyer by profession. And she told me that in the Soviet Union it was an exception that she was allowed to study law and then got a licence as a lawyer, because in the Soviet Union it wasn’t usual for women to work in this profession. And I found it so exciting to talk with this woman, because she was very grateful to me. Even though she had definitely already reached language level B1, at least at the beginning we still communicated in Russian. Interestingly, she often started speaking Ukrainian and then switched back into Russian. And I told her: “You’re very welcome to keep speaking Ukrainian, I’d like to learn a bit more Ukrainian too.” And she explained to me that for some years now she’s had to communicate mainly in Ukrainian, because as a lawyer she is of course legally obliged to: Ukraine now recognises Ukrainian as the state language, and above all only Ukrainian in court, and of course she now writes documents only in Ukrainian.
And then she told me that she is still arguing cases in court. And I was really amazed! I said: “How do you do that?” And she said that in Ukraine it’s possible to handle everything electronically, everything digitally – all correspondence digitally and legally secure – and that’s why she is still handling cases she took on before she fled, and now keeps arguing them from Halle before the court in Kharkiv – that’s her home town. And of course that’s super interesting, because the Jobcenter allows it: the Jobcenter says yes, of course she may continue working as a lawyer. The only thing she of course isn’t allowed to do – logically – is advise clients in Germany on cases being heard in German courts.
Yes, so I think I accompanied Svitlana Blaga quite a way on her path into German society. The last time we saw each other was, I think, in August or maybe September 2025 – so more than a year ago – and I hope she’s doing well and has found her way.
What do you take away from this thought?
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