Gainesville has become world leader in citizen diplomacy through Sister Cities program
After personally experiencing the horrors of World War II, including massive destruction and the worldwide deaths of 70 million to 85 million people, President Dwight D. Eisenhower created Sister Cities International at a White House summit on citizen diplomacy in 1956.
Sister Cities International is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit that serves as the national membership organization for U.S. sister cities, counties and states, connecting tens of thousands of citizen diplomats and volunteers in nearly 500 member communities with more than 2,000 partnerships in 140 countries.
People-to-people exchanges and initiatives promote peace through mutual respect, understanding and cooperation — one individual, one community at a time, changing the lives of individuals and helping communities around the world to thrive.
As a member of Sister Cities International, the city of Gainesville currently has nine sister city relationships, in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. A recent delegation of community leaders to Ghana may produce the 10th such program, which is ambitious for a city the size of Gainesville.
Sister cities are created by formal agreements signed by their mayors, which form permanent relationships, connecting counterpart individuals, organizations and institutions. Anyone is welcome to participate in hosting delegations, travelling to sister cities and conducting exchanges and collaborative projects.
Sister City Program of Gainesville Inc. is the local non-profit organization that administers the program on behalf of the city, which provides no direct funding. The board consists of directors of the individual relationships.
In February, Mayor Konrad Fijołek of Rzeszow, Poland, brought an official delegation to Gainesville. Last month, Gov. Ali Tatar Tawfiq of Duhok, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, visited Gainesville with a member of the Kurdish parliament, the director of tourism and agriculture, and an infectious diseases doctor.
Both groups visited the University of Florida, city facilities and local schools. Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe was invited to visit both countries this year with reciprocal delegations.
In 1982, Gainesville became the first U.S. city to form a sister city relationship with a Soviet city, starting a movement that eventually connected 300 U.S. and Soviet cities. In 1997, Gainesville once again became a pioneer in citizen diplomacy, initiating the first trilateral U.S./Israeli/Palestinian sister city relationship.
Thousands of Gainesville residents and many local elected officials have participated in sister city exchanges over the past 40 years, including around 100 sister city delegations and such various exchanges as children’s art, photography, musicians, dancers, artists, teachers, doctors, journalists, chefs, politicians, professors and many more. Oak Hall School and Santa Fe College collaborated with a Deaf school in our sister city of Qalqilya, Palestine, to create the first American/Palestinian video sign language dictionary and a new, state-of-the-art Deaf school in Qalqilya.
Sister City Program of Gainesville Inc. has also hosted 24 Library of Congress “Open World” delegations of young professionals from former Soviet republics, as well as a group of 25 Iraqi teenagers through the State Department’s Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program.
These exchanges and relationships have profoundly changed lives, enriched our community, showcased America’s best qualities to the world and provided opportunities for Gainesville’s citizen diplomats to experience the world in a unique way. As a result, Gainesville has become known as a world leader in citizen diplomacy through municipal relations.
Although some U.S. cities such as Tallahassee and Muscatine, Iowa, have suspended or terminated their Russian sister city relations due to the war in Ukraine, Mayor Poe followed the advice of Sister Cities International by reaffirming the value of open communications and citizen diplomacy, rather than holding our friends in Novorossiisk accountable for the actions of their national government.
Sister City Program of Gainesville Inc., doing business as the Greater Gainesville International Center, is also working to make Gainesville a “New Global City” by creating a center for international business, culture, education and innovation, which will showcase our many international connections and attract foreign investment and talent to Gainesville.
Steve Kalishman is executive director of the Sister City Program of Gainesville Inc.
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Steve Kalishman: Gainesville has been pioneer in Sister Cities program
