The Swedish Forum for Human Rights 2021 [English]

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...

(English) 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...

(English) 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...

(English) “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...

(English) 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...

(English) 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...

(English) How is Novi Ritm working with a Rights-Based Approach? (pt. 1)

By Johan Blomqvist, Centralasiengrupperna / Novi Ritm Osh, Kyrgyzstan Introduction On the 17th – 18th of April, 2015, Centralasiengrupperna’s partner organization ‘Novi Ritm’ in Osh, Southern Kyrgyzstan, held a two-day event informing about human rights. At the event, speakers from different organizations, such as OSCE, UNHCR and OCHCR, told about their work with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as their main tool. Since then there have been thoughts and discussions within Novi Ritm about what and how we could (and should) work with human rights. A springboard for the discussion has been the concept of a Rights-Based Approach...

Centralasiendagarna 2015

Äntligen kan vi på Centralasiengrupperna bjuda in er till Centralasiendagarna igen! Den 22 och 24 maj kör vi och i år har vi flyttat till Stockholm och bjudit in internationella gäster. Vi kommer bjuda på panelsamtal, föredrag, utställning och filmvisning och samtidigt sprida information om Centralasien till både en bred allmänhet och för de redan invigda entusiasterna. Vi vill belysa en annars så obelyst region utifrån olika perspektiv. Språket för dagarna kommer vara engelska. Har du frågor kontakta [email protected] Fredag 22 maj 12.00-17.00 Kungliga Myntkabinettet Slottsbacken 6 Stora Rummet 12.00-13.00 Lunchmingel inklusive introduktion 13.00-14.30 Panelsamtal: Mänskliga Rättigheter i Kirgizistan...