Burlington/ Puerto Cabezas Sister City Program celebrates
20 years of People-to-People relationships.
The years
2003-2004 marked the 20th anniversary of the Burlington-Puerto Cabezas
Sister City Program and its mission of promoting understanding between
the people of Vermont and those of Puerto Cabezas on the Atlantic Coast
of Nicaragua. The program has a history that has included exchanges
between municipal leaders, educators, artists, firemen, baseball players,
students, musicians, carpenters, drug counselors, agronomists, and families.
In August 2003 Mayer Peter
Clavelle kicked off the Burlington Latino Festival by declaring August
8 Puerto Cabezas Day in Burlington. Working with the Parks and Recreation
Department we were able to close the block in front of City Hall for a
street dance. Howard Jaentschke played Soka music from Nicaragua, and Vermonters
who had been involved with the program over the years spoke of their experiences.
The municipal gallery featured an exhibit of Dan Higgins’ photographs of
residents of Burlington and Puerto Cabezas, “Side by Side”.
In October 2003 The Living Learning
Gallery exhibited an exhibition of new photographs by Dan Higgins of life
on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. Included in the exhibition space were monitors
showing videos made as part of the Sister City sponsored URACCAN video
program launched in 2000.
In December 2003 the Sister
City Program was approached by a group of UVM students wishing to do community
work in Bilwi as part of UVM’s Alternate Spring Break program. Their leaders
attended several of our meetings and we organized contacts for the group
although ultimately the group cancelled their plans. We are working toward
sponsoring a UVM Alternate Spring Break delegation f or year 2005.
A special focus this past
year has been to celebrate the program’s history and promote new outreach.
Increasingly important to the program has been the use of video in introducing
Vermonters to their sister City in Nicaragua, and in introducing Burlington
to people in Puerto Cabezas. The video program we started in Bilwi in 2000
continues to generate rich programming that Adelphia Cable Channel 17 regularly
broadcasts. In May 2004 Channel 17 devoted a time slot for videos from
“Port” every Friday evening from 7 until 8pm.
In Burlington we have
encouraged groups to reciprocate by making videos to send to "Port". In
April we helped members of UVM professor Tina Escaja’s Spanish class record
video messages about their lives to their student counterparts at URACCAN.
We continue to help independent video producers in Bilwi with equipment
and technical support, as well as advise the media program at URACCAN.
We archive video programs onto DVD for the library at URACCAN.
In April 2004 the Sister
City Program sent local ambassador Howard Jaentschke to Bilwi to represent
Burlington at the 75th anniversary of Puerto Cabezas. Sister Cities from
Spain and England were also present in Puerto Cabezas for the occasion.
In May the Program hosted
Margarita Antonio, the director of communications from URACCCAN. She came
to Burlington to discuss future direction for the video program there.
We arranged for her to meet representatives of various educational institutions
to discuss possible future collaborations. Also we helped with the purchase
of DVD equipment for URACCAN’s new media center. Margarita appeared on
Richard Kemp’s Channel 17 “Here and Now” show.
A June newsletter was
sent to long time supporters with an update on activities and request for
continued support from the community. That generated funds and the donation
of baseball equipment. Also CVU high school student, Laura Navarro, has
chosen to work with the Sister City Program as her community project for
academic year 2004-2005.
This fall the Sister City
Board has plans for activities in both Bilwi and Burlington. In September
we will send a delegation from Burlington to Port that will coincide with
an Autonomy Conference in the region. Dan Higgins and Jane Kramer will
conduct a video workshop for students at URACCAN on documenting life and
culture in region. They will be collaborating with the Dwayne Waters dance
group that performs regional dances on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. Marisha
Kazeniac will also be part of the delegation, seeking contacts for future
educational exchanges between Puerto Cabezas and Burlington.
In
October we plan to bring Dwayne Waters and three members of his group to
Burlington to highlight of the Sister City Program’s 20th anniversary celebration.
The group will offer dance workshops for Burlington Kids followed by a
joint performance at Contois or Memorial Auditorium. City Arts has
agreed to sponsor the event and arrange for space in municipal buildings
and several schools have expressed interest in participating. We are actively
seeking outside funding for travel costs to bring the dancers to Vermont.
The annual stipend from
the city is invaluable, both materially and psychologically. As a program
we have very little overhead, with almost all funding going into active
programs. We are proud of Burlington’s 20 year commitment to a program
that offers unique opportunities for involving Vermonters in the lives
and realities of people in another culture. As an organization we function
as an umbrella, supporting a wide range of people to people contacts. The
direction the program takes has always been directed by the interests of
the people involved. Burlington residents are welcome to attend our monthly
meetings, and we continuously seek new members representing different aspects
of the community.
The best way to keep informed of Sister City activities,
or to reach us, is through our web site, www.uvm.edu/sistercity
|