Annual Report & Plan
Baltimore Sister Cities Annual Accomplishments Report for 2020 (PDF, 2mb)
Baltimore Sister Cities Annual Plan for 2021 (PDF, 1mb)
Jan-Feb | Building a climate-resilient Maryland together
A knowledge exchange symposium with experts from Maryland and the Netherlands on urban, rural, and coastal resilience, followed by 1on1 resilience chats in the month of February
Maryland and the Netherlands are working together to proactively implement adaptation strategies, exchange lessons learned and best practices, and look for more opportunities to collaborate on climate resilience. There are 2 activities in January – February:
1) January 26 — Symposium
This event with Dutch and USA experts provided an opportunity to learn about innovative adaptation strategies, exchange your ideas on climate-resilience, and participate in lively group discussions with experts who have helped implement world-renowned and transformational resilience projects.
Features presentations on strategies for Coastal Adaptation, Resilient Cities, and Small Communities and breakout sessions on Nature-Based Solutions, Public-Private Partnerships for Resilience Projects, Citizen Engagement in Hazard Mitigation, Resilience Adaptation Manual for Small Communities, Engineering with Nature, and Port Resilience, led by both Dutch and US experts in the private and public sectors.
This event is designed for: product and service companies involved with environmental and water management technologies; architecture/engineering firms; planners; government agencies, economic development professionals and climate/environmental organizations.
Presentation slides and recordings: www.netherlandswaterpartnership.com/events/building-climate-resilient-maryland-together (Scroll to bottom of page to see videos of some of the slides
Event program: www.netherlandswaterpartnership.com/events/building-climate-resilient-maryland-together
2) February — Matchmaking for Maryland & Netherlands flood resilience experts
Ran out of time during the January 26 symposium to set up meetings with experts from Maryland & Netherlands, or did you miss it? Our matchmaking platform lets professionals arrange 1on1 chats with resilience experts throughout the month of February, providing an opportunity for US and Dutch resilience planners and environmental technology firms to network with each other. You do not need to have attended the Jan 26 symposium to participate in the 1on1 chats.
Register here: resilient-maryland-netherlands.b2match.io
This event is organized by the Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP) in partnership with the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), the Maryland Department of Commerce, and the Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Committee (BRSCC). It is supported by the Partners for Water Programme.
S.O.S – Save Our Sister
— May 29, 2020 —
Baltimore Sister Cities, Inc. (BSC) is excited and honored to announce that its member organization, the Baltimore-Xiamen Sister City Committee (BXSCC) has arranged for the shipment of 50,000 surgical masks from Xiamen, China, to the City of Baltimore. BXSCC continues a long tradition of Chinese immigrants coming to the aid of the United States, from those who were critical to the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century to those who served in America’s wars and to those now helping Baltimore see the other side of this pandemic.
When BXSCC Chair Xin (Cindy) Wang began receiving requests for PPE (personal protective equipment) within Baltimore and from the State of Maryland, she reached out to the Xiamen Foreign Affairs Office as well as possible PPE providers in Xiamen.
With confirmation from Xiamen that the City could indeed provide masks, Wang began working with Hosea Chew, Director of Administration for the Office of Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, and the Chinese Embassy. Other Xiamen Sister Cities began receiving smaller PPE shipments and Wang began fielding daily calls about shipment logistics to Baltimore with freight forwarders, lawyers, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and customs officials.
The City of Xiamen is covering the cost of the masks themselves as well as shipment to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. The City of Baltimore is clearing the masks through customs and shipping them from New York to Baltimore. Baltimore Sister Cities, Inc, as the importer of record and a 501c3 nonprofit organization, is exempt from import duties and will be donating the masks to the City of Baltimore.
Twenty-five boxes of surgical masks—551 pounds—arrived in Baltimore on May 28. They will be stored at Baltimore’s Emergency Operation Center and distributed based on requests from hospitals or other institutions in need.
Contact
Tharwat Abouraya, President
Baltimore Sister Cities, Inc.
For more information about Baltimore-Xiamen Sister City Committee (BXSCC), visit their site at bxscc.org.
Other press releases
Baltimore Mayor’s Office press release
Baltimore-Xiamen Sister City Committee press release (PDF)
Video message from Xin (Cindy) Wang, Chair, Baltimore-Xiamen Sister City Committee
Multilingual coronavirus information for Baltimore
MIMA, the Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, has prepared translations of information on the coronavirus in an effort to increase awareness in Baltimore’s immigrant communities and limit the spread of COVID-19. The translations are available at:
mima.baltimorecity.gov/coronavirus
The state of Maryland also has information on the coronavirus in multple languages:
goci.maryland.gov/covid19-translations
Please pass this information along to your neighbors, and thank you for sharing and for keeping our communities healthy.
2019 Year in Review: Baltimore Sister Cities
At the turn of each year, we take stock of our accomplishments in the past year and make plans for the coming year. Our slideshow gives you a taste of what our 100+ volunteers achieved in 2019.
Annual Report & Plan
Baltimore Sister Cities Annual Accomplishments Report for 2019 (PDF, 3mb)
Baltimore Sister Cities Annual Plan for 2020 (PDF, 1.4mb)
2019 Photo Slideshow
Check out our slideshow with highlights from Baltimore Sister Cities activities and events in 2019!
Slideshow includes:
- Joint activities across the sister city committees (00:00)
- Changwon, South Korea (00:58)
- Gbarnga, Liberia (01:41)
- Kawasaki, Japan (02:13)
- Luxor & Alexandria, Egypt (03:14)
- Odessa, Ukraine (04:03)
- Piraeus, Greece (04:28)
- Rotterdam, Netherlands (04:58)
- Xiamen, China (05:54)
- “In Appreciation” section (06:47)
2019 APAHM Video
Highlights from our Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Celebration on May 31, 2019, held at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
New sister city agreement in 2019
Changwon, South Korea is our newest sister city! In 2019, a mayoral delegation from Changwon traveled to Baltimore to sign the official sister city agreement with Baltimore.
40th year anniversary: Kawasaki and Baltimore Sister Cities
In 2019, Baltimore and Kawasaki celebrated the 40th year anniversary of their sister city relationship. A mayoral-level delegation from Kawasaki visited Baltimore to commemorate the anniversary and renew the sister city agreement. To mark the anniversary, the Baltimore-Kawasaki Sister City Committee created an anniversay “Legacy Video” with stories from its emeritus members about the history of Baltimore-Kawasaki Sister Cities.
Dec 3 / EU Delegation visits Maryland
On December 3, 2019, European Union Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis leads a delegation of over 20 EU Member State Ambassadors for a day of engagement with Maryland state and local officials, students, educators, environmental and trade organizations.
Public events include:
- The European Union: An Innovation Partner for Maryland
12:30 pm at University of Maryland, Baltimore (panelists include the ambassador of the Netherlands) - The world’s response to the climate crisis: A roadmap for the future 12:30 pm at IMET (Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology) in Baltimore
- Globalization: Here to Stay? — A European Perspective 1:00 pm at Loyola University’s Sellinger School of Business in Baltimore.
Events are free but advance registration is required.
Organized by the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Committee is helping promote the events.
2018 Year in Review: Baltimore Sister Cities
Check out our slideshow with highlights from Baltimore Sister Cities activities and events in 2018!
And here are photos from our holiday party in January 2019 where we celebrated our 2018 accomplishments.
GreenPort Congress America 2018
About the conference
The GreenPort Congress is an international sustainability-themed port conference held every year (usually in Europe). In 2018, it came North America for the first time. It took place in Baltimore, Maryland USA in May 2018 at the Baltimore Convention Center and was hosted by Port of Baltimore, the Maryland Department of Transportation, and the Maryland Department of the Environment. The international sister cities network helped bring international speakers to Baltimore for the conference.
The GreenPort Congress conference provides the right forum to create partnerships working towards making our Ports Greener and Smarter, allowing a coordinated approach of the port-marine related industry and business. GreenPort Congress targets new innovations in equipment with leading edge technology that improves port efficiency and productivity, exploring latest practices and ensuring port users keep up to pace with current and forthcoming legislation.
Conference website: www.greenport.com/congressamerica
Balancing Environmental Challenges with Economic Demands
The role of the sister city / state network at GreenPort Congress
Baltimore Sister Cities and the Maryland Sister States Program helped the Maryland Port Administration attract international speakers and attendees to this conference from Japan, Liberia, Germany, and the Netherlands, and we helped plan some of the programming. In addition, the ports of Seattle and Tacoma brought their sister ports from Japan: Kobe and Kitakyushu. Speakers from our sister countries talked about their innovations that make ports more sustainable.
Highlights included:
1. Speakers from our sister countries
The sister city/state network brought these speakers to the conference from Japan, the Netherlands, Liberia, and Germany:
- Yuji Mitsutake, Port of Kitakyushu, Japan
- Masao Tanaka, Port of Kobe, Japan
- Shinpei Ueda, Port of Yokohama, Japan
- Harry Conway, Liberian Permanent Mission, The International Maritime Organisation
- Robert Howe, Bremenports, Germany
- Alan Dirks, Port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
- Martijn de Jong, Deltares, the Netherlands
- Jan Peelen, Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC
- Richard Hardiman, RanMarine Technology, the Netherlands & South Africa
- Pepijn Veefkind, KNMI and TU Delft, the Netherlands
- Cristina Murphy from XCOOP Rotterdam, speaking on behalf of Francesco Di Maio, TU Delft, the Netherlands
2. Sister Port Panel
This special “Sister Port Panel” session at the conference highlighted the benefits of sister ports working together to do knowledge exchanges, solve problems, and collaborate on projects. The panel featured these ports: Ports of Tacoma and Seattle from USA with their sister ports Kobe and Kitakyushu in Japan, and Port of Monrovia in Liberia (Liberia has two sister states relationships with Maryland and a sister city relationship with Baltimore). The panel was moderated by Patrick Verhoeven from the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH).
One of the outcomes of this panel was that the ports of Tacoma and Baltimore invited Alex Noah, Port Manager from Liberia, to do a residency at both US ports in fall 2018.
3. Trash-Eaters in the Harbor
A demo of innovative trash-eating technologies that clean the debris out of our waterways, including Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel and the Waste Sharks (aqua-drones) from RanMarine Technology in Rotterdam (Baltimore’s sister city in the Netherlands). Demo took place on May 18 in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
4. International Sister Port Reception
Baltimore Sister Cities, in partnership with Office of the Secretary of State’s Maryland Sister States Program and the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma, hosted a special invitation-only international “Sister Port Reception” to welcome the speakers from their sister countries. (This was not part of the official conference program.).
Welcome remarks at this reception provided by:
- Roger-Mark De Souza, Sister Cities International CEO/President
- John C. Wobensmith, Maryland Secretary of State
- R. Earl Lewis. Jr. Deputy Secretary for Policy, Planning, & Enterprise Services, MDOT
- Ethan Cohen, Senior Project Coordinator, Strategic Alliances, Baltimore Office of the Mayor
- Masao Tanaka, Port of Kobe in Japan
Attendees included: Our speakers from Greenport Congress; reps from state of Maryland and Baltimore city government; embassies from Japan and the Netherlands; reps from ports in US, Japan, the Netherlands, Liberia, and Germany; businesses; and trade development organization — providing a unique opportunity for people from a wide range of sectors to meet each other and network on trade and sustainability topics.
Corporate sponsors:
- Gold sponsor: UpLevl
- Silver sponsors: Maryland Department of Commerce, Baltimore Development Corporation, Ports America Chesapeake, RSM US LLP, KCI Technologies, MKS&H, Tisane Labs
See a slideshow about the ports featured at the reception (ports of Baltimore, Rotterdam, Monrovia, Bremerhaven Kobe, Kitakyushu, Seattle, and Tacoma).
Accolades
“The international city network was instrumental in the success of the first GreenPort Congress held in North America. The sister city committees helped with recruiting speakers and assisting with planning the conference. The sister port cities shared with the conference delegates the steps that they have taken to ”green” their ports. The feedback from the delegates was very favorable. The GreenPort Congress conference event planner, Mercator Media LLC, was so pleased with the sister port element that it will try to include the sister cities perspective in future conferences.” —Barbara McMahon, General Manager, Safety, Environment & Risk Management, MDOT Maryland Port Administration
“ I must say this evening’s reception is the perfect compliment to the Green Ports Congress. I acknowledge and congratulate Rachel Sengers and Baltimore Sister Cities for having the vision to host this reception. Overseeing the Maryland Sister States Program is one of the most rewarding aspects of my position as Secretary of State. It has afforded me the opportunity to make a real difference for the State, and as Governor Hogan likes to say, “Change Maryland for the better.” I also have to credit the volunteers and Sister States of Maryland, Inc. board members for doing so much of the hard work and putting the mission and vision of Sister Cities/Sister States into action. It is also a great pleasure to work with Baltimore Sister Cities. It is both impressive and inspiring how much the members of the Maryland and Baltimore programs collaborate with and support one another. I will finish my remarks by thanking all of the international speakers here with us this evening for coming to Maryland to share their expertise on how to make ports more environmentally sustainable. You do such important work and we all benefit when information is shared and studied.” — Excerpt from the welcome remarks from John C. Wobensmith, Maryland Secretary of State, at the May 17 International Sister Port Reception.
Baltimore-Rotterdam educational exchange projects – spring 2017
Theatre artist and educator Kathie diStefano from Rotterdam’s Avalanche Arts employs participatory techniques and theatre art to create awareness with youth and seniors about the environment through creative strategies to recycle and make smart consumer decisions. Ms. diStefano is planning to conduct several activities in Baltimore during the 2017 Spring school semester, including:
1. Operation Trash virtual exchange
“Operation Trash” project is designed to educate and connect high school students in Baltimore and the greater Rotterdam area. This virtual exchange project focuses on environmental themes. Improvisational theatre techniques and remote learning techniques will be used to teach sustainability, trash reduction, recycling, and inspire environmental stewardship. Through the use of classroom activities, improvisational theatre techniques, community events, and social media, teenagers in both cities will learn about sustainability, trash reduction, recycling and get inspired to become environment stewards for their communities. The project leverages an existing environmental educational program developed by Avalanche Arts and used in Rotterdam schools.
Project Partners
- Avalanche Arts, an organization based in Rotterdam (Dutch name: “Stichting Lawine”), initiated the Operation Trash Exchange and is designing the program together with the partnering schools.
- Bard High School Early College Baltimore (BHSEC Baltimore)
- Benjamin Franklin High School (BFHS)
- Both of the Baltimore high schools are being partnered with high schools in the Rotterdam region.
- Baltimore artist Bridget Parlato from Full Circuit Studio plans to work with Ms. diStefano on a professional development workshop for Baltimore teachers.
Photos from Avalanche Arts’ “Operation Trash” workshops with students in Rotterdam
Financial support
Financial support has been provided by CSX, MECU Foundation, and the Netherlands chapter of the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF).
More info about the exchange’s sponsors and partners
2. Artist residency at Mann Residential School
Ms diStefano will do an artist residency at this school in spring 2017. She will direct an “Eco News Show” theatre production with the school’s children, leveraging her experience with similar productions that she has executed with students and community residents in Rotterdam. It is a way for children to learn about trash and recycling through comedy and improvisational theatre. The residency involves 2 groups of middle school students; they will write the script, act, and work on sound, lighting, and scene — they will be involved in all aspects of the production.
Mann Residential School is on Sheppard Pratt campus in Towson, a suburb of Baltimore. It is a special school for children with multiple challenges and emotional disabilities.
More information about the ongoing Baltimore-Rotterdam art/education exchange is on the exchange’s website: harbortraces.org
