Promoting gender equality and equal access to education in Kyrgyzstan with our local partner Novi Ritm

For several years, Centralasiengrupperna has closely cooperated with our partner organization Novi Ritm in Southern Kyrgyzstan to promote active and meaningful participation of young people in the civil society sector. CAG has supported Novi Ritm in the implementation of activities that aim to increase the capacities of young people to influence their own lives and the lives of the communities they come from. One of the goals of the running project with Novi Ritm is to create equal education opportunities for young people and to inform local youth about their civil rights.  This blogpost is dedicated to the most...

Securing wetland ecosystems of Son-Kul Lake in the Kyrgyz Mountains

Since March 2022, CAG together with the Institute for Sustainable Development Strategy (ISDS), our partner organization in Kyrgyzstan, is implementing a project “Securing wetland ecosystems of Son-Kul Lake in the Kyrgyz mountains”.  The main goal of the project is to support the rights and strengthen the capacities of local communities to protect and manage wetlands and natural resources of the Son-Kul basin of the Naryn region. Context: Son-Kul Lake is an alpine freshwater lake located at an altitude of 3016 m above sea level in the Inner Tien Shan. Since 2011, the lake has been included in the International...

Centralasiengrupperna söker en praktikant som vill arbeta med hållbarhet och miljö hos en av våra partnerorganisationer i Kirgizistan

Centralasiengrupperna (CAG) är en ideell, volontärdriven organisation som är baserad i Malmö. Vi verkar huvudsakligen i postsovjetiska Centralasien inom tematiska områden som mänskliga rättigheter, konflikthantering, ungdomsfrågor, genus/HBTQ och miljö/klimat, men har också projekt i Sverige. En stor del av vårt arbete innebär kapacitetsstärkande aktiviteter för partnerorganisationer i Centralasien. Vi söker nu en person som vill arbeta med kommunikation och fundraising kopplat till klimatanpassning och biologisk mångfald hos en av våra partnerorganisationer i Kirgizistan. Praktiken är ca 5 veckor lång och kommer ske under sommaren 2022 (relativt flexibla datum). Du kommer huvudsakligen vara baserad på huvudkontoret i Bisjkek. Där kommer...

Tatiana joins Central Asia Solidarity Groups!

Hi, my name is Tatiana and it is my absolute honor and pleasure to join the Central Asia Solidarity Groups! I am from St. Petersburg, where I completed my master’s degree in International Relations in Post-Soviet space. I’ve always had a strong interest in human rights and democratization, and a big part of my master thesis focused specifically on the developments around civil society in the former Soviet republics. Becoming part of CAG is a great opportunity to learn how the civil society in the region operates in practice! Having studied in Poland and in Austria as an exchange...

Central Asia Days 2021

Central Asia Days took place on 25-26 November 2021 at ABF in Stockholm. We also had a movie screening at Zita Bio on 25 November. The event was well received and we had some fantastic speakers and participants widening our knowledge, providing excellent questions, and generating some very fruitful discussions about gender, climate, education, social cohesion, finance, and development cooperation projects in Central Asia. Participants found the event to be: ‘Det var fantastiskt, väl avvägt mellan olika samhälleliga aspekter och superintressant. ‘I enjoyed it very much and learnt a lot’ ‘Very informative’ The feedback showed a strong interest in...

Sustainable management and conservation of biodiversity of wetlands of Son-Kul Lake by the local community

Back in 2020, Central Asia Solidarity Groups have launched “Strategic Resource Fund” to support civil society actors in Central Asia. It aims to provide resources for civil society actors for strategic interventions in their respective contexts. The fund primarily focuses on financial resources, but can also provide various forms of capacity building, international networks, and partnerships, long-term funding schemes, etc. Over the course of the past year, we have supported three projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. All three of our partners within this funding scheme are grassroots and are closely tied to local communities – something that CAG...

Women-led permaculture initiatives in semi-desert villages of Kyrgyzstan – part 2 (From seeds to harvest)

Since March 2021, CAG together with a local organization El-Too is implementing a project to introduce permaculture initiatives among 60 rural women of 5 villages in Kyrgyzstan. The goal of the project is promoting the womens’ role in land management, building sustainable livelihoods, facilitating gender equality and creating food sovereignty through permaculture kitchen gardens in semi-desert areas that suffer from land degradation. This is the second blog post about the project (you can find the first blog post here). Taking into account the level of knowledge of farmers and geographic conditions described by the lack of water and precipitation,...

The Swedish Forum for Human Rights 2021

Central Asia Solidarity Groups (CAG’s) aims to promote a strong and inclusive civil society that contributes to protection of human rights and achieving social justice in Central Asia. We primarily work within the thematic fields of youth, climate, gender and conflict transformation through long-term solidarity work and capacity building activities. Our geographic focus is the five post-Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.  To support its main mission, CAG is actively involved and participating in events addressing human rights issues from different perspectives to raise awareness about the human rights situation in Central Asia. One of these...

Migrant children in Russia: how CAG’s partner works to integrate children into society

Centralasiengrupperna actively works within the thematic fields of gender, democratic youth organizing, climate, conflict transformation and provides capacity-building activities for partner organizations from Central Asia as well as partners from Russia that closely work with Central Asia. Russia remains the main destination for immigrants from all over the former Soviet Union, especially for people from Central Asia who migrate to Russia every year in search of work. 145,000 people from Central Asian became full-fledged citizens of the Russian Federation in 2020. The research of the Higher School of Economics shows that there are more than 60 000 of immigrant...

The process of spreading biohumus on the top layer.

Women-led permaculture initiatives in semi-desert villages of Kyrgyzstan – part 1

Since 2018, CAG has worked within the thematic areas of climate and environment in Central Asia. This year we are piloting permaculture initiatives among rural communities in Kyrgyzstan as an intervention to deal with the problems of food insecurity, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss as well as gender inequality and community health. The pilot project is being implemented with local partner El-Too and was launched in March. This is the first of a series of blog posts about this exciting and innovative project. The villages on the south-west of Issyk-Kul lake, Kyrgyzstan, that are located in semi-desert areas are...