[English] 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...

[English] Youth workers from Kyrgyzstan and Poland visit Malmö

     “Youth Agents for Change – Combating Discrimination Based on Gender Age and Ethnicity”           Mobility of youth workers in Malmö, Sweden  Dear folks, how did you spend your last few days? For us, these were very intensive and at the same time productive days. CAG together with our partner organizations in Kyrgyzstan – Noviy Ritm and in Poland – KobieTY had a week (May 20-May 26, 2019) of the mobility of youth workers together with civil society organizations working with youth in Sweden.  Participants of the program during an introductory session (Day 1)...

Central Asia and the Myth of Radicalization [explainer clip]

Central Asia, Uzbekistan in particular, has been widely discussed in Sweden because of the terrorist attack in Stockholm on April 7th, 2017. Since then, the major news outlets in Sweden such as Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet have linked terrorism to Uzbekistan and generally Central Asia. In other words, it is said that the regime creates grounds for radical extremism. The analysis of how the Swedish mass media constructs Central Asia infers that the region is prone to widespread radicalization, terrorist activities, and fundamentalism. But is this really the case? Do the regimes in Central Asia create grounds for...

[English] LGBT activist is charged for organising peaceful photo session in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan: Zhanar Sekerbaeva, prominent LGBT activist from Kazakhstan and co-founder of feminist initiative Feminita, based in Almaty, was detained on Wednesday, August 14, 2018. According to Feminita, Zhanar, together with Elena Ivanova, Alina Nevidimko and Polina Pollinium, organized photo session at Arbat street in Almaty on August 9th, 2018, dedicated to de-stigmatization of menstruation that attracted a lot of attention both online and during the session itself. Despite that the photo session was peaceful, it was interrupted by men, who pulled out posters in aggressive manner and threatened to take away mobile phone from one of the participant. The...

Encouraging youth’s civic activism related to human rights in villages and smaller cities in Southern Kyrgyzstan

This summer, Central Asia Solidarity Group’s main partner organization Novi Ritm organized not one but two subsequent Human Rights Camp in Osh, Kyrgyzstan! Novi Ritm is a youth organization run by youth for youth, working with informal education about human rights, gender equality and conflict prevention, most of the time using peer-to-peer methods. The camps were held within the framework of a common project Novi Ritm and Central Asia Solidarity Groups has for 2018-2019. It aims at increasing the knowledge and awareness about human rights among youth in Southern Kyrgyzstan on both a social and legislative level, and strengthening...

“HBTQ-personer i Kasakstan är diskriminerade på väldigt många nivåer i samhället”

Det har varit ett hektiskt år för Zhanar Sekerbayeya. Nyligen blev hon och hennes kollegor på Kasakstan Feminist Initative «Feminita» klara med de 228 enkäterna och 43 intervjuerna som gjorts med lesbiska, transexuella och queerpersoner i Kasakstan de senaste två åren. –  Det brukar sägas att det inte finns några lesbiska kvinnor i Kasakstan. Nu har vi motbeviset och här är även deras behovsanalys, säger hon....

Emma Rönngren

(English) Presentation of Emma, intern at UNICEF Kazakhstan

Hi! My name is Emma Rönngren and I am a second year master student in strategic communication at Lund University. I am currently living in Astana, Kazakhstan where I am doing a two month long internship at the UNICEF country office. The internship is part of my studies and the reasons why I ended up in Kazakhstan are many. First and foremost because of my passion for the Russian language and culture, and my weakness for former Soviet states. I have two bachelor degrees: one in public relations and one in Russian language and literature. During my studies I have...

Med Genus i Fokus – Vår resa till Kirgizistan Del 2

Under våren startade Centralasiengrupperna en så kallad Genusgrupp, som bestått av ett litet antal eldsjälar – nyfikna på att lära sig mer om Kirgizistan och det postsovjetiska Centralasien. Under våren har vi behandlat teman så som internationella relationer, brudkidnappningar och åldersdiskriminering. Vi har dessutom fått delta i ett kunskapsutbyte med några representanter från Centralasiengruppernas partnerorganisation Novi Ritm. De besökte Sverige den 3 till den 10 maj, och vi fick besöka Kirgizistan från den 4 juni till den 11 juni. Här kommer det andra inlägget (av tre) – Häng med oss och inspireras av de fantastiska, om än komplexa, historier...

Why are only women on parental leave? (English)

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...

(English) 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...