Social theatre in Sumhat – discussing the issue of suicide among young people in Kyrgyzstan

As you can read about here and here, Novi Ritm’s 1325-team is currently spending most of its time traveling around the regions and towns where we’ve previously held trainings, in order to supervice and document the third and last step of the project, which is: facilitating peace initiatives and regional network working together with issues relating to UNSCR 1325. From the second step of the project: awareness raising and knowledge building activities in the three regions of Osh, Batken and Jalal-Abad, participants from nine of the schools that we’ve visited have been granted money for coming up with and...

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...

A road trip through Tajikistan

Living in Osh, you sometimes forget how close you are to your neighbours, that is to say, neighbours in surrounding countries. Looking at a map, Uzbekistan is less than 10 km from Osh city centre and even though Uzbek culture is highly present in Osh (probably due to around 50 % of the city’s population being ethnic Uzbeks), crossing the border to Uzbekistan is anything but simple. However, Uzbekistan is not your only option if you want to explore another country but still stay in the region. Living in the Kyrgyz part of the Fergana Valley, you basically find...

A visit from Sweden

In correspondence with the close partnership that Centralasiengrupperna and Novi Ritm share, this week Annika (Coordinator on Gender and Women’s Rights) and Jessica (previous EVS-volunteer at Novi Ritm and currently working with budgeting and economy in the two projects on a voluntary basis) are visiting from Sweden, the main purpose being to evaluate not only how the projects are coming along, but also in what ways we can continue our partnership. Today we spent the day outside of Osh, namely in Alay (roughly one and half hours drive from Osh), with the purpose of doing a bit of teambuilding...

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...

“They should respect girls like they respect each other” – International Women’s Day in Osh

Today is International Women’s Day and in Kyrgyzstan this is a public holiday. Banners are put up all over the city, wishing women happiness and prosperous lives with many children. For two days the streets in the city center has been filled with flower stands and everywhere you see men caring bouquets and gifts for their wives, mothers and sister. Even I have gotten my fair share of well wishes (for instance, a lady I met at the banya (russian sauna) two weeks ago, sent me a text with roses and hearts). To tell you the truth, I have...

(Swedish) Introducerar: 40 Kirgiziska Kvinnor – Från då till nu

För en månad sen blev projektet ”40 Kirgiziska Kvinnor – Från då till nu” (”40 Women of Kyrgyzstan – From Past to Present”) tillgängligt online via vår hemsida. Sedan dess har nyheten om projektet spridits i olika sociala medier och artiklar. Bland annat skrev Osj-baserade Florian Coppenrath en artikel om projektet på tyska och franska, men trots att den ursprungliga målgruppen var svensk allmänhet har material på svenska uteblivit. Detta ska vi ändra på från och med idag! Den här texten kommer ge en introduktion till projektet och dess olika kanaler. Här kommer vi att ta upp projektets ursprung,...

Trainings in Batken Oblast with the 1325-team

As many of you know, part of Novi Ritms work during 2016-2017 has been and still is to raise awareness among Kyrgyz youth in relation to the UN Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. It has previous featured on this blog here and here. Last week the 1325-team plus me and Emma went to Batken Oblast, in order to conduct two trainings on human rights – especially focusing on women rights and 1325. As a way of highlighting harmful structures in society as well as the level of inequality between Kyrgyz men and women, part of the training...