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Kumasi, Ghana and Charlotte leaders build on Sister Cities partnership
Sept 20, 2022
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| PHOTO | STEVE GOLDBERG |
| A delegation from Kumasi, Ghana were the guests of honor Monday at a reception and dinner at Johnson C. Smith University. The dinner and entertainment were part of an effort by Kumasi and Charlotte leaders to build the Sister Cities agreement between the two. |
A delegation from Kumasi, Ghana led by Mayor Samuel Pyne were in Charlotte Monday for meetings and events designed to breathe new life into a Sister City relationship first joined 27 years ago.
Kumasi became Charlotte’s seventh Sister City 1995, following Wroclaw (1993), Limoges, France (1992), Voronezh, Russia (1991), Baoding, China (1987), Krefeld, Germany (1985), and Arequipa, Peru (1962).
The concept of creating relationships between U.S. cities and those in Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa was originated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who envisioned an organization that could be a hub of peace and prosperity by creating bonds between people around the world.
Sister Cities International was created at Eisenhower’s 1956 White House conference on citizen diplomacy.
Pyne, who was sworn in as mayor of Ghana’s second largest city last October, was accompanied by municipal chief executive Michael Amoah Awuku, Ohene Amankwah Gyan (legal/media), and Luther King Adinkrah (communications).
Along with members of Charlotte’s Sister Cities Board and Charlotte International Cabinet, former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot, who signed the Sister City agreement with Kumasi and former U.S. Rep. Mel Watt who represented Charlotte from 1993 to 2014, were in attendance. Watt, an attorney who was director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency from 2014-19, led the effort to bridge Charlotte with Kumasi as a Sister City from his Washington and Charlotte congressional offices.
“We had been active in the Krefeld Sister City relationship when Harvey Gantt was mayor of Charlotte and some members of my staff recognized that we had never had a Sister City relationship with an African country, so we tried to find a country and a city that had some commonalities with the city of Charlotte and North Carolina,” Watt said.
“There was a lot of textiles and furniture manufacturing going on in Kumasi at that time, and here at that time.
“If we’re going to be an international city, it’s important for us to have strong friendship relationships, not just political relationships, with people from various countries and cities. We have as much of a connection to Kumasi and Ghana as we have with Krefeld and some of the other Sister City arrangements. I value those relationships too and think they are important.”
While civic leaders and politicians may formalize Sister City agreements, it takes active community engagement to make them work. As such, there are the dynamic life cycles of those involved, usually individuals with a tie to or vested interest in the city or country that keep these relationships vibrant.
As Charlotte has grown, so has the African-born population, including Ghanaians who now call the Queen City home and are students at JCSU.
“Several universities in Kumasi have a similar history as us,” said Karen Morgan, JCSU’s senior vice president for academic affairs. “This is an opportunity for us to establish partnerships whereby we can establish exchange programs for our faculties and students, and even perhaps our staff to visit Ghana and the universities there. Our students will be able to study in areas such as some the STEM fields, and business, entrepreneurship, finance, and retail. If we move forward, this will be an historical occasion because we will be one of the first HBCUs to establish relationships with universities in Ghana.”
