Sister Cities Take Action
I recently met with the President of the US Africa Sister Cities Foundation (USACF), Shirley Rivens Smith. She told me that the Foundation is an arm of Sister Cities International which creates partnerships between cities around the globe. The purpose of sister city relationships is to promote friendship and mutual understanding between two cities and their citizens, based upon the principals of mutual respect, mutual benefit, and cooperation. USACF exists to create greater awareness of the 97 sister cities in Africa, address issues that affect Africans, and promote public awareness through African Sister Cities relationships.
I was really impressed to learn from Shirley that USACF has a network of 4500 individuals, including mayors, who receive periodic updates from her. When I told her about the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009, she offered to send around the petition to USACF members. I’m certain that without the actions of people like Shirley, we couldn’t have reached our goal of 100,000 signers! We owe a big thanks to USACF and all the other organizations and individuals who helped spread the word! Thank you!
-Ranna Lanagan
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July 1, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Thanks Ranna for this post. I found it most interesting because I had suggested to people in ONE five years ago about the wonderful things going on with the Sister Cities programs around the world and of the Sister Cities organization’s support of the MDG’s.
At that time and several times since then, I suggested to several people at ONE that the national office should open up discussion with the Sister Cities’ African Foundation to see where we could links with them to advance our common goals.
I’m glad that someone finally has….
Please keep us updated on the progress between any discussion on common action for common goals between our two organizations.
AS ONE, debbie
http://www.myspace.com/mulago