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MA town looks at establishing sister city accord with Saipan
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Posted on Jan 11 2016
A town in Massachusetts is looking into partnering with Saipan through the Sister Cities International.
According to the Saipan Mayor’s Office, a school in Massachusetts has reached out to establish a sister city program.
“The students’ exchange is becoming an awareness program. Massachusetts started communicating with us; they want to do the same thing with us here,” Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang said. “That’s good because when kids travel abroad they learn about different countries, different cultures.”
The Sister Cities International serves as a hub for institutional knowledge and best practices in the field of citizen diplomacy. A sister city, county, or state relationship is a broad-based, long-term partnership between two communities in two countries.
The sister city organizations promote peace through people-to-people relationship and has program offerings varying greatly from basic cultural exchange programs to shared research and development projects between cities with relationships.
Through an email, former Saipan resident and now Groton-Dunstable Regional High School’s AP government teacher Jay Villagomez communicated to the mayor their interest to establish the program.
Villagomez said Saipan students may be able to have exchange programs with their school and the other way around, as well as have media and business exposure in the state.
Groton is a town in northwestern Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
According to special assistant Henry Hofschneider, the Mayor’s Office will be working with either the municipal council or with the Saipan delegation to assist them in establishing the sister cities program.
