Photo by Timeprotv - Getty Images
Irpin, Ukraine
Irpin, Ukraine
“A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves, a special kind of double.”
Those are the words of the late American novelist Toni Morrison and they aren’t just an apt description of actual sisterhood. In a real sense they also describe Milwaukee’s sister city relationships with communities all over the world. As part of the Sister Cities International program, Milwaukee has five sister cities, a diverse group of communities which have formed relationships with the city based mostly on cultural ties but also touching on areas like education, tourism, economic interests and humanitarian assistance. In its mission statement, the Sister Cities International organization calls the programs “people to people diplomacy.”
Milwaukee’s current sister cities are Irpin, Ukraine; Zadar, Croatia; Galway, Ireland; Tarime District, Tanzania; and Bomet County, Kenya. The longest official relationship the city has is with Galway, dating back to 2009. Some sister city designations are the result of people from a foreign city reaching out to Milwaukee officials, but most are formed at the instigation of local residents who share an ethnic or cultural background with residents of other places.
“Milwaukee is such a diverse city and it’s a real benefit to people here to have a relationship with people in the country that they or their families are from,” said Oscar Tovar, a staff assistant to Mayor Cavalier Johnson who also serves on the Sister Cities Committee. “Cities might approach us but there also might be a citizen or group here in Milwaukee which has an interest in collaborating with a country or city where they’re from. Most often it’s something sought by a non-profit organization here which has a relationship with an organization or local officials in another part of the world.”
Sponsoring a Sister
Once a sister city arrangement is proposed, participants on both sides go through a sort of interview process with a local Sister Cities Committee which is appointed by the mayor. “In the interview process we learn what their city is all about and if there are ways we can collaborate. But we do require that a local non-profit organization to sponsor that sister city,” Tovar said.
|
|
It’s those similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds which are the foundation of most sister city arrangements. Milwaukee’s population is nearly 40 percent African American so establishing ties to African communities seems natural. That’s why the city is now involved with the sister cities in Kenya and Tanzania. There are also an estimated 3,000 residents of Ukrainian descent living in Milwaukee so having a sister city relationship with a Ukrainian city made sense, too. Irpin, Ukraine became a sister city in 2018.
“Probably 90 percent of the relationships begin here as opposed to other cities looking for us,” said Al Durtka, the retired past president of the International Institute of Wisconsin and whose involvement in the sister city program dates back three decades. He said he hopes someone or some group within Milwaukee’s heavy Serbian population will sponsor a sister city initiative with a community in Serbia. “We’re looking to someone in the ethnic Serbian community to suggest cities which make sense for us to be involved with,” Durtka said.
Cultural Exchange (and More)
Perhaps the most public-facing element of the programs are the cultural exchanges which have resulted from them. Many of Milwaukee’s performance and visual artists have traveled to sister cities to display their work and to perform and performers from those sister cities have often visited Milwaukee. That includes Irish dancers and musicians from Galway who take to stages at Irish Fest each year. Sister cities representatives have taken part in other ethic festivals and events, too, bringing their music, dances and food. “We get to learn about their history and culture and about how they live. They get to learn about us. It’s a really nice mutual exchange,” Durtka said.
But one of Milwaukee’s sister city relationships has taken on a darker tone over the past year. Ukraine has been mired in a war to maintain its independence from Russia and the sister city of Irpin, a suburb about 15 miles north of Kyiv, was among the first Ukrainian cities to come under Russian attack. Tovar said the ties which have been formed through the sister cities program have helped many Milwaukeeans to better understand the situation there. It has also provided a conduit for local authorities to help their counterparts in Ukraine.
“Having a sister city in Ukraine gives us a personal connection,” Tovar said. “That leads to programs involving assistance in a people-to-people way, whether it’s financial or material assistance. Irpin is having a very difficult time and there have been several calls between our mayors to talk about ways we can help. With what they’re going through, it’s nice that we can let their mayor and their citizens know that they have a partner in Milwaukee and that we have their back.”
An example of material assistance came last year when Irpin Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn contacted Milwaukee’s mayor to request guns and ammunition, asking if the city could send them weaponry it had seized or recovered from crime scenes or that it obtained from residents as part of gun “buy-back” programs. Markushyn said his city’s police and territorial defense forces were hampered by a shortage of handguns and other weapons. Officials in Miami, Florida, which is also a sister city to Irpin, sent 167 guns after a similar request from Markushyn but Milwaukee’s Public Safety and Health Committee balked at facilitating such a shipment.
Instead, it greenlighted a proposal to send body armor, face shields and handcuffs to Irpin, much of which had belonged to local Milwaukee police officers who have resigned or retired. At the time, Mayor Johnson noted that the request was a departure from the exchange of culture and ideas which usually make up the bulk of a sister city relationship. “We’re in a position where our sister cities relationship is going out of the mold for what I think is usually intended,” Johnson said. “We’re doing our best to be supportive here but I think guns is probably a step too far.”
Another example of material assistance to a sister city is evident in an effort to help Bomet County in Kenya with its shortage of fresh water. “It’s a real problem in Kenya,” Durtka said. “We have an abundance of fresh water and lots of expertise in clean drinking water systems here. But there, even if they have water treatment systems, they usually don’t work very well. Because of our relationship with them, we’ve had our experts in water technology go to Kenya to explore ways we can help. So, working together, we can solve problems. At the same time, they can help us by bringing creativity and new ideas to the table. It’s a great exchange of ideas.”
Economic Relations
While economic interests are not integral to the sister city programs, international business can happen as an offshoot. Tovar said business relationships sometimes occur when individuals with involvement in sister cities programs have decided to cultivate them. “It’s wonderful when that happens. Even though most of the sister city relationships depend on cultural and interpersonal relationships, it sometimes works in ways which broaden economic opportunities, too,” he said. “We hope we’re getting to the point where we can get businesses in the sister cities to partner with Milwaukee based companies such as Milwaukee Tool and Harley Davidson.”
Local volunteers in the Bomet County sister city partnership have also worked on plans which would facilitate shipments to Milwaukee of fresh fruits grown by farmers in Kenya. “If we can further develop our exchanges with Bomet, it can result in a more direct route for those goods to sellers in Milwaukee.” Durtka said. “It’s like building a business network here but with the rest of the world. It builds Milwaukee’s network. Sister cities programs span a wide range of possibilities.”
Educational initiatives have also been fostered as a result of sister cities programs. While not officially part of the core program, student exchanges have been spurred with several sister cities. Students from those areas come here to study and educators from those cities have come here to teach at Milwaukee School of Engineering and at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
“Educators on both sides of our sister cities partnerships have given good reviews to it,” Durtka said. “It’s a decided advantage to have people who are native to a particular country and who speak the language coming here to teach. It helps us better understand them from a linguistic standpoint but also helps us see more directly what life is like in those countries and how we and they relate to the rest of the world.”
Volunteers sometimes serve as host families for students and educators from the foreign cities. “Those families often get really involved and they develop really strong bonds with individuals from across the pond,” Durtka said.
While sister city relationships start at the citizen level, local government involvement is a key to sustaining them, Durtka said. “In a successful sister city program, there has to be multiple touch points. If the mayor doesn’t buy in, things can go by the wayside. But when the mayor or a group of city council members decide that sister cities are the greatest thing since apple pie, the process can really go like gang busters,” he said.
Funding to support the programs is paramount, of course. Except for dues paid by the city for membership to Sister Cities International, which Durtka said are nominal, no taxpayer dollars are used. “The international relationships have to be funded through their own means and the amount of financial support determines how engaged we can be,” he said. “There is no corporate sponsorship so individuals and organizations in each city have to raise the money in order to make it go.”
Citizen Volunteers
In-person meetings between people in the sister cities, both at the government and citizen level, could pose troublesome financial difficulties but Durtka said online meetings using technologies like Zoom have alleviated many of those concerns. At their essence, though, sister city partnerships rely on citizen volunteers. “It’s mainly a relationship that needs to be built around individuals who, as volunteers, are willing to move forward,” he said.
Tovar said the Sister Cities Committee is always looking for more volunteers and for more cities with which to develop sister city relationships. While partnerships with similar sized communities can be highly beneficial to Milwaukee, Durtka said developing sister city ties to smaller towns are also important. He pointed to a past sister city relationship with Lublin, Poland, a town of only 300 people.
“We have several more cities in the hopper and I think there’s a bright future for growing the programs,” Durtka said. “But it’s not without its challenges. It takes a personal time commitment and, of course, the dollars to make them a reality. We hope governments are involved but citizens are the anchors we need to keep the programs going.”
Both Tovar and Durtka say they have personally benefitted from being involved with Milwaukee’s sister cities. Tovar said he and Mayor Johnson have been able to make stronger connections with local ethnic communities here by participating in the sister cities program. “We get invitations to many events, and they have helped us build core relationships with people here and from places far away from home,” Tovar said.
Durtka said his work with sister cities has allowed him to forge individual friendships with sister city participants around the world, some of which have lasted for decades. “Those connections have remained strong even after some of the official sister city relationships have dissolved,” he said. “Those affinities make us global citizens and encourage us to become citizen diplomats. It helps us be concerned not just about ourselves but about everything that is happening in the world. We can be supportive of each other.”
