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Regional Partnerships 2025 – Part II: El-Too and sustainable livelihoods through knowledge and culture

As part of Central Asia Solidarity Groups’ 2025 series highlighting our partnerships across Central Asia, this story continues from our previous post about ISDS’s work in strengthening community resilience and biodiversity protection. While ISDS focused on wetlands and environmental education, El-Too’s initiatives show how the same regional cooperation has inspired new forms of local action, creativity, and community participation in Kyrgyzstan. In the mountains and semi-desert plains of Kyrgyzstan, the organization El-Too has spent the past three years working with farmers, students, and local authorities to turn ecological awareness into everyday practice. What began as a project to promote...

Regional Partnerships 2025 – Part I: ISDS and community-led biodiversity action

Throughout 2025, Central Asia Solidarity Groups worked closely with local civil society organizations across Central Asia to strengthen community resilience, environmental protection, and women’s and youth empowerment. This blog post is part of a three-part series highlighting stories from our partners ISDS, El-Too, and Little Earth each showing how collaboration and local knowledge continue to shape sustainable change beyond the project’s initial three years. Centralasiengrupperna works together with local civil society organizations across Central Asia, promoting gender equality, protecting the environment, and building stronger, more resilient communities. One of our partners is the Institute for Sustainable Development Strategy (ISDS)...

Annual meeting and documents

We invite members and friends of Central Asia Solidarity Groups to our online annual meeting on April 6, 2025, at 14:00 PM. The annual meeting will feature a presentation of CAG’s work in 2024, including financial overviews, as well as the action plan for 2025, and the election of a new board and a chairperson (see agenda for more information). A link to the online meeting will be shared via email with registered participants closer to the meeting date. Annual report 2024 Årsredovisning 2024 Annual plan 2025 Annual meeting agenda...

Interview with Gulaiym Baiturova – participant of the initiative with El-Too

Featured image: Gulaiym Baiturova  In this second part of our article series, we share the story of Gulaiym Baiturova, who became a participant in the collaborative initiative of Centralasiengrupperna and El-Too in 2021 – a partnership aimed at promoting permaculture principles to provide innovative solutions for climate change adaptation in North Kyrgyzstan. Since then, Gulaiym has been practicing permaculture both as an agricultural practice and a life philosophy, continuing to transform her family’s 6-acre garden into a thriving example of sustainable agriculture. Tell us a little about yourself. How long have you been farming and where is your permaculture...

Story of Zhenishbek Shuguraliev – participant of the initiative with El-Too

Featured image: Zhenishbek Shuguraliev  Centralasiengrupperna’s project with El-Too targets rural communities of Naryn and Issyk-Kul regions in Kyrgyzstan. By promoting permaculture principles, we support farmers in finding innovative ways to adapt to climate change, create sustainable livelihoods, achieve food sovereignty, and enjoy healthier, more varied diets.  Zhenishbek Shuguraliev shares his experiences of being part of the initiative, highlighting how permaculture has impacted his life and garden. Zhenishbek, from the village of Uchkun in the Naryn region, is someone who actively applies permaculture principles in agriculture. He is an inspiring example of how dedication and permaculture can transform a garden,...

Sustainable energy solutions and empowering women in Yagnob Valley in Tajikistan

The Yagnob Valley, nestled in the picturesque but remote mountains of Tajikistan, remains largely cut off from the modern world. Isolated for almost five months each year due to harsh winters a nd an unsafe mountain road, the region faces significant challenges. Limited access to electricity, schools, and healthcare, coupled with energy poverty, make daily life difficult for the approximately 70 families scattered across 17 villages. Despite these hardships, the valley is a protected national natural and ethnographic park, designated to preserve its rich biodiversity and cultural heritage. Since 2019, Central Asia Solidarity Groups together with the environmental organization...

Girls’ Day Conference: Celebrating Sisterhood and Dreams for the Future

We are sharing updates from our residents, Johanna and Susanna, who recently completed their residencies at Novi Ritm, our long-standing partner in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. In this post, they reflect on their experience at Novi Ritm’s Girls’ Day Conference, a powerful celebration of sisterhood and young women’s dreams for the future. Every year on October 11, the world comes together to celebrate International Day of the Girl Child. This special day, declared by the United Nations in 2011, is a call for action to address challenges girls face globally. It is a day to empower girls, advocate for their rights...

Greetings from Osh!

The picture features Johanna (on the left) and Susanna next to her on top of the sacred mountain Sulaiman Too in Osh We are Johanna and Susanna, and we are doing a two-month residency at Centralasiengrupperna’s partner organisation Novi Ritm. We have now been in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, for three weeks. From the beginning, we have been impressed by the impactful and important work of Novi Ritm. It is inspiring that the organisation is almost entirely run by youth (and for youth), working with a holistic set of strategies to make an impact. These include lectures, outreach and providing a...

Permaculture in practice – visit to Kyrgyzstan

In June 2024, Jona Elfdahl and Etta Säfve, permaculturalists and artists at Gylleboverket, traveled to Kyrgyzstan to meet CAG’s local partner, El Too, and visit permaculture projects in the northern region of the country. Read their story below. The snow-capped mountain peaks surround us as we lie in the waters of the turquoise lake. Soon the sun will set, and we will settle into the yurt that will be our home for a few days during our two-week stay in Kyrgyzstan. We are here to visit and exchange experiences and knowledge with seven different sites that have started transitioning...

Kyrgyzstan’s Parliament passes repressive ‘foreign agent’ bill

Central Asia Solidarity Groups is very concerned about the recent developments around the legislation affecting civil society in Kyrgyzstan as they challenge the efforts to promote a democratic Central Asia with a strong, active, and inclusive civil society. This is a harsh and unjust bill that aims to tightly control the work of civil society, with special scrutiny on those that receive foreign funding. The bill closely resembles the so-called “foreign agents” law of Russia; it is a continued alarming practice that aims to control civic freedoms and independent activism in Kyrgyzstan. The new bill, approved in the third...