By Carolyn Gantner
Madison Sister City Collaboration Committee
To showcase and celebrate Madison’s international partnerships, the community is invited to “Celebrate Madison’s Sister Cities” Saturday, April 27, 5‒8 pm, at Madison College (Truax campus).
This year’s event will highlight our Latin American sister cities in Arcatao, Camaguey and Tepatitlan. Emcee will be State Representative Chris Taylor, who was on a delegation to Arcatao in 2018. The evening will include a keynote address by Dr. Eduardo Santana-Castellon, an adjunct professor at UW-Madison and Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico. He has received numerous international awards for his conservation work in the Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve. Entertainment will be provided by Ballet Folklorico de Maria Diaz and Madison Youth Choirs. There will be photo displays and a buffet dinner featuring Latin American food.
The citizens of Madison have been creating international friendships with communities around the world for over 30 years. The Madison Common Council approved our first sister city relationship in 1986 with Arcatao, El Salvador; and since then many more have been formed, currently including Freiburg, Germany; Vilnius, Lithuania; Camaguey, Cuba; Mantova, Italy; Obihiro, Japan; Tepatitlan, Mexico; Kanifing, The Gambia; and our newest sister city of Bahir-Dar, Ethiopia, in 2018.
To maintain and coordinate these programs, the common council approved the creation of the Sister City Collaboration Committee (SCCC) in 2008. The SCCC is comprised of representatives from each of the sister cities, an at-large community member and an alderperson. Visit cityofmadison.com/sister-cities.
Sister city programs are active in a variety of areas that include human rights, environmental advocacy, cultural and student exchanges, and medical and humanitarian aid, to name a few. Mutual visits with our sister cities over the years have benefited all involved. Through these international exchanges, we celebrate our differences as well as our shared humanity with the theme of “people to people” at the core. The value and significance of celebrating our differences and our shared humanity will be recognized at the April 27 event.
Tickets for “Celebrate Madison’s Sister Cities” are $40 ($25 for students) and are available at Brown Paper Tickets (sccc.brownpapertickets.com/event/4090840). The deadline for online ticket purchases is April 15. For additional information, contact Program Chair Jon Heinrich at jonfelixheinrich@hotmail.com or SCCC Chair Charles James at cjjames@wisc.edu.
