Richmond City Council Sister Cities Commission

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 19, 2010

SISTER CITIES INTERNATIONAL AWARDS GRANT FOR AFRICAN SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT TO THE

RICHMOND SISTER CITIES COMMISSON

        Grant funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  

RICHMOND—Sister Cities International has awarded a two-year, $115,000 grant to Richmond Sister Cities Commission to perform projects that address sanitation, health, and water issues in urban areas of Africa. This project is funded by a $7.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“This Sister Cities International program represents a major effort to address fundamental needs of citizens of urban areas in Africa," said Patrick Madden, President and CEO, Sister Cities International. "These sister cities represent some of the strongest partnerships between the U.S. and Africa and will become the measure of how cities can help each other and leave an enduring legacy in tangible ways."

The 17 grant recipients were selected by an independent panel of five experts in the areas of sister city relationships, aid administration, and international development. The other recipients include:

• Baltimore, Maryland, and Luxor, Egypt

• Chicago, Illinois, and Casablanca, Morocco

• Delray Beach, Florida, and Moshi, Tanzania

• Durham, North Carolina, and Arusha, Tanzania

• Jacksonville, Florida, and Port Elizabeth, South Africa

• Long Beach, California, and Mombasa, Kenya

• Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, and Buffalo City, South Africa

• Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and uMhlathuze, South Africa

• Oakland, California, and Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

• Riverside, California, and Obuasi, Ghana

• Seattle, Washington, and Mombasa, Kenya

• Sonoma, California, and Aswan, Egypt

• St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Louis, Senegal

• Toledo, Ohio, and Tanga, Tanzania

• Urbana, Illinois, and Zomba, Malawi

• Wilmington, Delaware, and Osogbo, Nigeria

The 17 cities will join the seven city pairs that were chosen in Phase I of the program. Training with and travel to the African partner city for the newly chosen group will take place throughout the remainder of 2010.

“We are proud to be part of the second phase of the Sister Cities International’s Africa Urban Poverty Alleviation Program. With this grant we will be able to begin working on initiatives to improve the drinking water supply and sanitation needs in our sister city of Segou. We will continue to develop the structural relationships in technical and cultural expertise in both Segou and Richmond that will facilitate addressing other areas of civic priority for both cities, such as education, poverty reduction, and economic development.”, says Allan Levenberg, Richmond Sister Cities Commissioner and AUPAP Project Manager for the Commission.

MEDIA CONTACT: Frances Reimers, 202.347.8630 x8251 or freimers@sister-cities.org

About Sister Cities International

Sister Cities International is the only U.S.-based organization dedicated to creating long-term city-to-city relationships between communities in the U.S. and abroad. Created by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 at a White House summit, the organization is a leader in people-to-people exchanges with a network that boasts over 650 U.S. cities with more than 2,000 sister city relationships in 136 countries on six continents. Currently, the organization has 124 partnerships in 36 countries in Africa.

About AUPAP

Africa Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (AUPAP) is a three-year project to alleviate poverty in 25 African cities through water, sanitation, and health initiatives led by U.S. and African sister city programs. U.S. sister city programs will collaborate with their African counterparts to identify and address the most critical problems in these sectors, which form a barrier to sustained development in urban areas.

The sister cities network will capitalize on local members’ technical and professional expertise; links to city government, academia, nonprofits, and the private sector; and the long-term, people-to-people relationships they have developed over time to create projects that are both technically sound and based at the grass-roots level. Sister Cities International will also gather a group of international development experts to aid in the planning and execution of the projects.

For more Information

Contact Allan Levenberg at allanlevenberg@comcast.net or 804 241-0287 for more information about the Richmond Sister Cities Commission.

Visit www.sister-cities.org/africa for more information regarding Sister Cities International and the Africa Urban Poverty Alleviation Program. Facebook: Sister Cities International. Twitter: @SisterCityIntl

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 8 OCTOBER 2009

Richmond to become Sister City with Ségou, MALI

Mayor Ousmane Simaga of Ségou, Mali travels to Richmond to meet Mayor Dwight C. Jones and sign the agreement that will make Ségou Richmond's 7th Sister City.

Richmond, VA, October 8, 2009 - Through the efforts of locally based Virginia Friends of Mali and Richmond's Sister City Commission, on June 3, 2009 Richmond City Council passed a resolution patroned by 1st District councilman Bruce Tyler to pursue an official sister city relationship with Ségou, Mali. In his letter of introduction to Mayor Simaga, Mayor Jones stated, "Our cities have many things in common, from our identity as capitol cities, to the rivers that flow through our vast landscape, and the history and culture that make us educational and recreational destinations." On Tuesday, October 13, 2009, the two mayors will meet in person for the first time to sign the Sister City Agreement and enjoy a few moments to get acquainted.

Mr. Ousmane Simaga, Mayor of Ségou, the second largest city in the West African nation of Mali, will pay his first visit to Richmond Friday, Oct. 9 - Tuesday, Oct. 13. In his letter of response, Mayor Simaga stated, "The strength of this long-term association rests in the hands of our citizen volunteers and participants," and described the formation of a Comité de Jumelage to work with Richmond's Sister City Commission, Virginia Friends of Mali and other "citizens interested in promoting understanding and helping to fight poverty in our two communities." Visiting with Mr. Simaga will be Mr. Mohamed Doumbia, Assistant Director of the Festival on the Niger and representative of the Ségou Economic Development Council, as well as Mr. Kalifa Ahmadou Toure, Mali-based representative of Virginia Friends of Mali. Oregon-based Malian social entrepreneur Ms. Haoua Cheick Seip is also in town to run the Virginia Friends of Mali booth at the Richmond Folk Festival's Marketplace.

The delegation's itinerary includes visits to the Richmond Folk Festival, the Southside Child Development Center in Richmond's Manchester neighborhood, the 3rd-grade students of Southampton Elementary School, VCU's Introduction to African American Studies class and Afrikana student organization, the Black History Museum and Cultural Center, Richmond's Oct. 12 City Council meeting, and a private reception hosted by Dr. Robin Edward Poulton, President of Virginia Friends of Mali. Mr. Simaga will also take a walking tour of Shockoe Bottom and attend a program honoring the memory of Africans from the Mali region who may be buried in the Burial Ground for Negroes.

Past visits to Richmond by Malian dignitaries have included Ambassador Abdoulaye Diop in 2005, 2006 and 2008 and Prime Minister Ousmane Issoufe Maiga in 2005. Discussions have taken place with civic, social and educational leaders in Richmond and many Richmonders have visited Mali.

Mr. Mamou Daffe, President of the Festival on the Niger (festivalsegou.org/new) and the Ségou Economic Development Council first raised the idea of programmatic collaborations with National Folk Festival director Julia Olin during a visit to Richmond in 2006. As Mr. Daffe's emissary, Mr. Doumbia's focus will be to further explore ideas of partnerships or exchanges between the two festivals. The Ségou festival's website states that the 6th Festival on the Niger runs from Feb. 3-7, 2009 in Ségou offering a unique spectacle of "music and dance from the region, as well as well-known West-African artists, who will play on the banks of the river Niger. The Festival on the Niger offers an interdisciplinary and inter-cultural meeting, bringing together people from Ségou, Malians and foreigners from all over the world, sharing the same wish: to discover the other and to learn from our differences." To commemorate the new "twinning" of the two cities, Richmond will be the city of honor during the 2010 Festival sur le Niger and a delegation from Richmond is expected to attend.

Virginia Friends of Mali is a 501(c)(3) organization that creates and promotes educational and cultural pathways to understanding and cooperation between the peoples of the African nation of Mali and the State of Virginia, USA. Learn more at vafriendsofmali.org.