Donate via credit card or PayPal: Donate here

The Baltimore-Odesa Sister City Committee will use the full amount of your donation for humanitarian aid to citizens of Odesa (a.k.a. Odessa).

If you prefer to pay by check (in US dollars): Make your check out to: BSC. Put “Odesa” in the memo line. Mail it to Baltimore Sister Cities, 4701 East Lane, Baltimore MD 21210 USA.

Baltimore Sister Cities, Inc. is a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. No goods or services are provided to you for this gift. Please consult your tax advisor regarding specific questions about your deductions.

Come join us at our fundraiser event in Baltimore’s Patterson Park on July 23!

Join the Baltimore-Odesa Sister City Committee for the first annual BMore for Ukraine, a celebration of communities coming together to support Ukraine in its time of need. The event will feature live music, cultural dance, raffles, and more!

All proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen & United Help Ukraine.

For more info and to purchase tickets: Eventbrite page

About the Baltimore-Odesa sister city relationship

The Sister Cities International program was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 to create a force for international cooperation and understanding through community involvement by promoting peace through people-to-people relationships. The Baltimore Sister Cities (BSC) Program was established in the early 1970’s by then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer. The Baltimore-Odesa Sister City Committee (BOSCC) was established in 1974 and is the second oldest relationship managed by Baltimore Sister Cities, Inc, a non-profit 501c3 corporation.
Visit www.baltimoreodesa.org for more information, more ways to support Odesa and Ukraine, and to volunteer for the committee.

A Tale of Two Cities: Baltimore and Odesa — The Role of Sister Cities in International Relations

Recording of a recent webinar hosted by Baltimore-Odesa Sister City Committee, where panelists discussed the connection between Baltimore and Odesa in light of current events at the intersection of public, private and government partnerships across the world which help promote international diplomacy.
youtu.be/QxAFORH3MDg

Interview on Baltimore radio

Listen to recent interview on Baltimore’s WYPR radio station with Karina Mandell, Chair, Baltimore-Odesa Sister City Committee, talking about current events in Baltimore’s sister city of Odesa, Ukraine:
www.wypr.org/2022-02-25/baltmores-sister-odesa-ukraine

Representatives of Maryland Department of Emergency Management (MDEM, formerly known as MEMA), travel to the Netherlands for a flood-resilience themed trip in early November. JaLeesa Tate, Maryland State Hazard Mitigation Officer; Kyle Overly, Director of the Disaster Risk Reduction Directorate; and Allegra Tartaglia, Non-Governmental Services Branch Manager, will participate in Amsterdam International Water Week and share about resilience efforts in Maryland at this AIWW panel on Nov 1: aiww2021.com/event/risk-and-resilience-in-the-americas

AIWW is a hybrid conference, and the online events are FREE, including the panel in which MDEM is participating. To register: aiww2021.com/register

The MDEM representatives will also visit integrated climate resilience and flood prevention infrastructure sites in Rotterdam and The Hague and hold meetings on the topics of resilience and disaster risk reduction during their visit to Netherlands.

In addition, Kyle Overly will be joining a government panel exchanging flood resilience initiatives at the Dubai World Expo Urban and Rural Development Day in the Dutch Biotope Pavilion in the Sustainability District (Dutch Dubai), sharing the milestones and initiatives in cities in the State of Maryland and the city of Baltimore.

We thank Janett Tapia, Arjan Braamskamp, and their colleagues at Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP) for their work in planning this trip. The Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Committee (BRSCC) is honored to help with the planning.

This is part of ongoing collaboration between Maryland and the Netherlands on climate adaption and resilience.

Background

During a delegation visit from Kawasaki to Baltimore in 2019 to celebrate the 40th year anniversary of the sister city relationship, several delegates spoke informally to Baltimore-Kawasaki Sister City Committee (BKSCC) about JFE, a Kawasaki corporation and the second largest steel manufacturer in Japan, closing down its steel mill on a reclaimed island in Tokyo Bay, part of Kawasaki. Koji Hirao, the Chairman of the Kawasaki International Association and a member of the 2019 delegation, reached out to BKSCC in 2020, to find out if Baltimore would be interested in providing background information for a Kawasaki municipal project following the removal of the JFE steel mill facility. Kawasaki wanted to talk to groups in Baltimore who had been involved in the Tradepoint Atlantic redevelopment project at the Bethlehem Steel site at Sparrows Point, Baltimore County, for insights into planning and execution.

Meeting in October 2021 about steel mill site redevelopment

In response to Kawasaki’s inquiry, BKSCC is helping to organize a virtual meeting on Tuesday, October 19 with about 20 invited participants. The meeting will include Baltimore county officials and members of TradePoint Atlantic’s development team along with members of Kawasaki City’s coastal area development team. The purpose of the meeting is to share the invaluable experiences by those Baltimore parties who were involved in the redevelopment of the Bethlehem Steel site. 

Attendees will include: the members of the City of Kawasaki Coastal Area International Strategy Headquarters; its advisors from the Mitsubishi Research Institute; the Tradepoint Atlantic management team; development officers from Baltimore County; the Baltimore Development Corporation; and the Commerce Department of the State of Maryland; several BKSCC members; and Geri Byrd, president of Baltimore Sister Cities.

Carbon-free power generation

BKSCC is also asking Kawasaki City to provide Baltimore with new research and information about their initiatives on carbon-free power generation. Kawasaki City is a leader in Japan, committing itself to the pursuit of a carbon-free circular economy. One of the city’s initiatives is to generate carbon-free power (ie, hydrogen) by using plastic waste and food waste. This initiative is managed by the City of Kawasaki Coastal Area International Strategy Headquarters. This article is an example of this trend: globetrender.com/2021/06/19/tokyu-hotels-first-hydrogen-hotel-japan

— April 2021 —

Baltimore Sister Cities (BSC) stands united and in solidarity with members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in Baltimore and in all parts of the United States. Especially as home to three Sister City relationships in Asia (Changwon, Korea; Kawasaki, Japan; and Xiamen, China), BSC deplores the events of the past year targeting members of AAPI communities. We are outraged at this senseless violence and abhor the pain and hurt inflicted on our AAPI colleagues and friends.

BSC makes this statement with awareness that anti-Asian violence is woven into the very history of our country. The Chinese massacre of 1871, the attacks on Filipino American farmworkers in the 1930’s, the angry incarceration in prison camps of Japanese Americans during WWII, and the violent arson by the Ku Klux Clan of Vietnamese American fishing boats in the 1970’s, were all emboldened by dehumanizing stereotypes and prejudice perpetuated towards Asians who immigrated into the American landscape. This normalizing of racism has continued in language like “Kung Flu” and “China Plague” in recent months.

BSC is committed to fighting prejudice and to creating dialogues on all forms of discrimination. It leads with a purpose of promoting cultural interchanges that can foster new and more culturally aware engagement. It is not what we say in the short term, but what we remain dedicated to that has lasting effects. BSC has vowed to send a strong message by providing an opportunity for an open dialogue of discussion with a distinguished group of panelists that will shed light on violence against AAPI communities. Within the next few weeks we will be announcing a live event and webinar discussion to educate and create awareness of AAPI issues and their long-term effects.