Organization partners with Jamaican sister city

Members of the Central Alabama Caribbean American Organization are traveling to Kingston, Jamaica, this month to officially create a Sister Cities partnership. Mayor William Bell will be part of the delegation.

Scotty Colson, the director of Birmingham Sister Cities, said CACAO approached the program two years ago wanting to be involved. A sister city must be able to exchange not only culture, but also arts, business, sports, education and more. Plus, CACAO must organize exchange visits and be able to host families, students or other groups traveling from Jamaica.

“They already have relationships built, so they’ll be the drivers of the relationship between these two cities,” said Birmingham Sister Cities President Mark Jackson.

Birmingham has sister programs with cities in Japan, China, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Ghana, Hungary, Italy, Ukraine, Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Israel and Jordan. Colson said the program is working on a second Ghana connection as well as establishing a sister city in Northern Ireland.

These relationships create more than just a chance for exchange visits.

The city’s oldest relationship is with Hitachi, Japan, and the two cities have an annual quilt exchange. A Vulcan statue replica sits in a community park in Hitachi, and the city gave Birmingham stone lanterns that were placed in Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  Colson said they want to send a Vulcan statue to Liverpool, U.K., as well.

“It has been very wide and touched a lot of different areas,” Colson said.

There also has been an economic relationship, as the program makes it easier for Birmingham businesses to enter their sister cities’ markets — and vice versa. A group of businessmen from Japan recently visited to consider doing business in Birmingham, and two Japanese doctors came to teach and observe at UAB.

“What has come of that is the fact that … there are three companies from Birmingham that are starting to do business in Liverpool, and we have a delegation from Liverpool coming to Birmingham in February,” Jackson said.

After CACAO’s trip to Kingston, scheduled for Jan. 3-5, a similar partnership of culture, business and education can be formed there as well.

Go to cacaoonline.org to learn more about the Kingston Sister Cities relationship and other CACAO projects.