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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...

Volunteering opportunity with Central Asia Solidarity Groups

Deadline: January 25th, 2020 Hosting organization: Central Asia Solidarity Groups/Centralasiengrupperna Vacancy: 2 volunteering positions Start date: March (flexible) Duration: 12 months Volunteering opportunity with Central Asia Solidarity Groups The following vacancies are available at the Swedish organization Central Asia Solidarity Groups, through the European Solidarity Project funded by Erasmus+ and managed by the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society. Candidates, who are interested in these volunteering positions must register at European Solidarity Corps portal and submit their CV together with one page letter of motivation no later than January 25st, 2020. Central Asia Solidarity Groups’ OID is E10064468....

Positive changes through social coffee shop in Osh

“Social coffee shop brings positive social changes among the youth of Osh”  Our dear friends, We are here today to share some updates from our partner organization in Osh, Kyrgyzstan – Novi Ritm. Lately, Novi Ritm has been expanding and building opportunities for youth of the country to speak up about the challenges in the society of Kyrgyzstan. And today we are going to talk about a specific core area of the organization – social entrepreneurship. It is a new working area for Novi Ritm, but they already created the first social coffee shop in Osh! This blogpost will...

Central Asia Days 2018

On November 25th and 26th Centralasiengrupperna is hosting the fifth annual Central Asia Days conference in Stockholm! This two-event will include seminars, lectures, discussions, and a movie screening, with activists, civil society members and researchers. Free admission. Sign up here: https://simplesignup.se/event/141000  Full program: November 25, 12.00 – 19.15 ABF Huset (Per-Albin room), Sveavägen 41, Stockholm 12.00 – 12.30 Reception 12.30 – 14.00 Lecture: Gender Equality: Soviet vs Independent Kyrgyzstan The lecture will be held by Aisuluu Namasbek kyzy from the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The lecturer will focus on comparison of gender equality in soviet and post-soviet Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan experienced...

Coming home from Kyrgyzstan – three months later

It has now almost been three months since me and Emma arrived back in Sweden, after spending four months in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Previously when I’ve spent some time abroad, I’ve marvelled at the fact that your life just goes back to normal so quickly; you meet up with old friends, walk the same streets as you’ve always walked before, go back to work or school – and all of a sudden it’s like you forget that you’ve just spent the last four or six months in a foreign country – with new friends and different streets – and that...

“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...

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...

Presentation of the new CAG intern Amanda

Hi everyone, So far, 2017 has been treating me good. At the end of last year I got a call from Annika at CAG telling me that I’d gotten an internship at CAG – going to Osh, Kyrgyzstan to work with their partner organization Novi Ritm for four months. I guess most of you reading this already know about CAG and Novi Ritm – and probably also something about Kyrgyzstan. Therefore I wont be going into details about this part. I’ll just say that right now me and Emma (the other intern whom I’ll be going with) are in...

Part 2. Women’s Roles in the Construction of Identity in Kyrgyzstan: Ideas and Expectations of Women

Welcome to the second blogpost in the miniseries about the roles of women in Kyrgyz national identity! In the first blogpost, I introduced and elaborated on concepts such as national identity. Ethnicity, religion, and nomadism are all important, yet in very different ways, in Kyrgyzstani identity. In this part, I will continue to elaborate on how these are part in shaping ideas and expectations of Kyrgyz women, and how this might have an impact on women’s situation in Kyrgyzstan today. Because of rather limited space, much will be generalized, thus I want to highlight that there exists multiple dimensions...

Part 1. Women’s Roles in the Construction of Identity in Kyrgyzstan: What is Kyrgyz National Identity?

Welcome to the first blogpost in the miniseries about the roles of women in Kyrgyz national identity! This post will be dedicated to clarify some concepts, such as national identity and gender, and shortly explain how and why they relate to each other. I will present a few theories of how national identity is constructed and maintained, to elaborate on my first out of three questions presented in my introductory post: What has been central in the construction of Kyrgyz national identity post-independence? What is National Identity? The understanding of a nation can be manifold. Several scholars from many...