Carolyn Gantner
Carolyn Gantner snapped this photo during a visit to Camaguey, Cuba, one of Madison’s nine sister cities.
When Samba Baldeh was elected in 2015 to the Madison Common Council, one of the first things he did was seek appointment to the Sister Cities Collaboration Committee. Established in 1998 with the goal of fostering peace and goodwill through cultural exchange and understanding, the initiative connects Madison with communities in Europe, Central America and Asia. Baldeh, a native of the Gambia, wanted to diversify the program further.
“I wanted to have at least one sister city in Africa,” says Baldeh, who represents a far eastside district. He reached out to the local African American community for input, and, with help from a group of volunteers, established a relationship with Kanifing in the Gambia. It became Madison’s ninth sister city in May 2016.
With the Kanifing program now up and running, Baldeh has continued to champion Madison’s sister cities program. He’s behind an effort to bring people from all nine sister cities together for a first-of-its-kind event honoring the program’s mission of international friendship. The first annual “Celebrate Madison’s Sister Cities” event is April 14 from 5-8 p.m. at the Madison College Truax Campus.
“We want to highlight our work, and how we are really changing lives across the globe,” Baldeh says. “But this is also reciprocal — it’s not a one-way thing. It’s also enriching to our community here.”
There are a number of ongoing collaborative research projects involving scientists from Madison’s sister cities, including a partnership between Obihiro University of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture in Japan and the UW-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. There are also exchange programs for older students and (pen-pal programs for younger ones), and Madison frequently hosts artists and musicians from its sister cities.
The event will feature a keynote speech on “creating international friendships from the grassroots level” from former Gov. Jim Doyle and his wife Jessica, plus remarks from Mayor Paul Soglin. The Madison Youth Choir will perform compositions from all nine of Madison’s sister city regions. Tickets are $40 and are available online until April 9. Tickets can also be purchased by emailing jonfelixheinrich@hotmail.com.
Madison’s other sister cities include Ainaro, East Timor; Arcatao, El Salvador; Camaguey, Cuba; Freiburg, Germany; Mantua, Italy; Obihiro, Japan; Tepatitlán, Mexico; and Vilnius, Lithuania. Delegations from all nine cities have been invited to the event, but so far only Mantua has confirmed attendance.
Individual sister cities often have their own events, but bringing the whole group together offers a new opportunity to showcase the program in its entirety, says Carolyn Gantner, a member of the sister city committee that has done work with Arcatao, El Salvador. “A lot of people don’t know about the role of sister cities in our community,” she says. “This event will be a nice way to invite people to come and find out about us, to see if they would like to be involved, and to celebrate the whole idea of international friendship.”
As a friendship organization, the sister cities committee is not political. But the group felt compelled in October 2017 to issue a statement supporting the rights of immigrants and refugees and affirming a Madison resolution designating “safe places” where noncitizens can get information and interpreter services. The move was a response to executive orders from President Donald Trump which many see as xenophobic. “So many of us believe in building bridges between people, between our country and other countries,” Gantner says. “Building bridges is the opposite of building walls.”
Baldeh says the upcoming event has “nothing to do with politics.” But he acknowledges that Trump’s policies make the sister city program all the more relevant. “This is not an immigration issue, but this has a lot to do with immigrants,” Baldeh says of the celebration. “Coming to this event will show support for our immigrant community.”
