Residence for Climate activist in Kyrgyzstan

Central Asia Solidarity Groups (Centralasiengrupperna) is co-organizing an activist residency in Kyrgyzstan, together with the youth organization Novi Ritm. The residence will take place during 2 weeks in November, primarily based in the southern city of Osh with Novi Ritm as the hosting organization. We are currently looking for suitable candidates for this residence.   During the residence the activist will work closely with Novi Ritm and conduct a series of activities, including lectures, workshops, planning sessions and meetings. As Novi Ritm and its young members and volunteers are rather new to the thematic areas of environment and climate,...

Why are only women on parental leave?

Yesterday me, Amanda and Aida participated in “consultation between lawyers and young people” made within one of the projects at Novi Ritm, the 1325-project. The consultation where held in Osh city.  Some weeks ago Novi Ritm arranged “trainings of trainers” and the next step for these young trainers have been to implement a mini project in their local context. All these mini projects will be implemented in May and we will try to participate and report about as many of them as possible. This project was carried out by Guliza and Dastan, see picture below. The session between lawyers and...

Training in Aravan

This friday me and Amanda together with staff from Novi Ritm, participated in a training made within one of the projects at Novi Ritm, the 1325-project. The training were held in a school in Aravan, about 30 minutes from Osh city. Some weeks ago Novi Ritm arranged “trainings of trainers” and the next step for these young trainers have been to implement a mini project in their local context. Three girls, Naila, Zarnigor and Dilyora facilitated the training which began with a discussion about gender stereotypes, social constructed and biological gender, UN resolution 1325 and some games. You could...

Everyday life in Osh

In Osh, new things happens all the time and we meet new people everyday. After a few weeks of acclimatizing we have started to get some routines in our life and Osh finally is feeling more like my – at least, second home. In this blogpost I will talk about everyday life in Osh and give example of what we do during our days here. The day usually starts around 08.00 when me and Amanda gets up and we have breakfast in our house. After that we usually head to the gym. We have a really nice gym and since both...

Workshop: Islam and feminism

Disclaimer: CAG is a politically and religiously unbound organization and this blog post mirrors only my own thoughts in connection to this workshop and from spending only one week in Kyrgyzstan. It should also be underlined what is being presented is a small part of the research conducted on the subjects of Islam and feminism, ethnicity and gender. This Friday the staff of Novi Ritm participated in a small workshop about Islam and feminism, which was facilitated by Grace Zhou, an anthropologist who writes her dissertation on gender and informal economy here in Kyrgyzstan. On the picture above you...

Two weeks of preparation

The picture above is from this week when me and Amanda, the organization Vardagens Civilkurage, our colleagues from Novi Ritm and CAG’s international coordinator Annika had a workshop in Malmö, Sweden. We practiced different roles you can have in a meeting e.g how you can intervene if someone interrupts and how you can act in different situations to make a meeting as democratic as possible. We also practiced different dialogue methods. The workshop was organized by Vardagens Civilkurage and was very good and interesting. This week has also been a lot about planning, mostly activities related to Resolution 1325...

Soon in Kyrgyzstan – presentation of Emma, new CAG intern

Hi there, I’m currently at a café in Malmö, Sweden, with my new friend and colleague Amanda. Last day we met our Kyrgyzs colleagues (they are in Sweden now), it was so nice to meet them before going to Kyrgyzstan and they made a really good impression. Since I will spend some time blogging from Osh in Kyrgyzstan I thought this would be the perfect moment to introduce myself. After years of studying at the University of Gothenburg, last week I finally got my bachelor’s degree in political science, something I’m very happy about! I’ve been writing my thesis...

(English) Non-violence training in Osh

In June Centralasiengrupperna visited Novi Ritm in Osh for a week and hosted a training in non-violence intervention with Per Herngren, non violent trainer and active within the plowshares movement, at the Novi Ritm house. The lectures focused mainly on tools to improve the democracy within meetings, how to approach problematic situations and how to intervene when a conflict arises. During the trainings the participants got a chanse to try out different non-violent methods by reenacting possible situations. For example how to repond to sexist comments or other discriminating acts. The participants from Novi ritm discussed how they could...

How is Novi Ritm working with a Rights-Based Approach?

By Johan Blomqvist, Centralasiengrupperna / Novi Ritm Osh, Kyrgyzstan Introduction On the 17th – 18th of April, 2015, Centralasiengrupperna’s partner organization ‘Novi Ritm’ in Osh, Southern Kyrgyzstan, held a two-day event informing about human rights. At the event, speakers from different organizations, such as OSCE, UNHCR and OCHCR, told about their work with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as their main tool. Since then there have been thoughts and discussions within Novi Ritm about what and how we could (and should) work with human rights. A springboard for the discussion has been the concept of a Rights-Based Approach...

Comics workshop on Gender Issues in Osh

Novi Ritm in Osh hosted a unique two days workshop on how to create comics and share girls problems in a patriarchial society. Workshops were organized by four members of the Swedish feminist collective of cartoonists Dotterbolaget with the collaboration between Centralasiengrupperna. During the first day participants learnt basics of comic drawing and different methods. On the second day, girls depending on their interest and will, were divided into 4 small groups, where they created their own comics on themes such as: bride-kidnapping, street harassment, violence against women and stereotypes. “Girls group” played a big role in organizing the...