— June 5, 2020 —
In 2020 our world is faced with threats to drive us apart. The COVID-19 pandemic has physically separated us and driven us to panic and fear from an unseen enemy. The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others, have dramatically exposed the tragically inhumane treatment of African Americans. Now is the time to respond to these threats and show who we really are as people.
We at Baltimore Sister Cities are in pain over the events of this year. They remind us with death and sadness of all the ways we are not treating each other with common respect. During these difficult times, we support solidarity and a strengthened commitment to care for each other and work to improve our community, our city, our country and our world.
As Sister Cities, we strive to build empathy across diverse cultures and peoples with friends from Gbarnga to Rotterdam, from Alexandria and Luxor to Xiamen and Changwon, from Kawasaki to Piraeus to Baltimore. While we may be culturally diverse and geographically disperse, we are unified and driven in our sense of purpose that, together, we must and we can bring respect to ALL people.
We encourage our Sister Cities volunteers and you to raise our voices, join together, and do all that we can to effect change in response to threats and make the world a more just place for all people.
BALTIMORE SISTER CITIES
Baltimore (USA), Alexandria/Luxor (Egypt), Changwon (Republic of Korea), Gbarnga (Liberia), Kawasaki (Japan), Piraeus (Greece), Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Xiamen (China)
