BECAUSE THE ULTIMATE DESTINATION IS UNDERSTANDING

The ever-present “things we are thankful for” lists are everywhere this month, especially during these challenging times and the Fort Worth Sister Cities staff is grateful for many things this Thanksgiving. Our lean and mean team of four are immensely grateful to the people who continue to believe in our mission and serve in various ways to strengthen this organization.

• YOU are the reason we have the number one sister cities program in the nation!
• YOU are the reason for our ability to reach so many youth and involve them in our international education programs.
• YOU are the reason we were able to continue our robust programming virtually in a time when in-person programs and travel were not possible.

Our family of committed and dedicated volunteers, board members, Global Academic Fellows, educators, members and supporters keep us going. We mean it when we say we can’t do it without you.

So, please accept our sincere THANK YOU! We are so thankful to have YOU on our team!

Sincerely,

Your Staff – Mae, Joe, Beth and Danielle

Fort Worth Sister Cities International was established on June 26, 1985, 35 years ago, after a group of dedicated volunteers with a goal to create a nonprofit, citizen diplomacy organization, focused on understanding and respect of other cultures, came to life in the City of Fort Worth.

As stated in this year’s annual report by Veronica Chavez Law, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors, “Sister Cities has played a major role in Fort Worth and around the world creating culturally competent individuals who accept and respect others.” Today our mission is more important than ever to help close the divide we are experiencing right now here in our own communities.

Understanding and respect of others is needed universally and as we celebrate our 35th anniversary let us live by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

While we can’t meet in person to celebrate, we hope you have been celebrating virtually with us on Facebook through our 35 Things in 35 Days campaign. You can found out more here.

We’ve all been adjusting and learning new ways to communicate and engage during this abnormal time of social distancing and Fort Worth Sister Cities has been experimenting with virtual exchanges through video conferencing. We are continuing to engage the local community in our work, as well as reach out to other parts of the world. In fact, in June we’ll be conducting virtual professional development training for urban planners in the Republic of Georgia. 

Since so many of our international exchanges occur with students, we focused a lot of our energy on them this last month. Our Youth Ambassadors, delegation leaders and associate delegation leaders experienced disappointment over the cancellation or postponement of their spring and summer exchanges to several of Fort Worth’s sister cities. Outbound exchanges to France, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Japan and China will be moved to 2021. Excited students ready to travel and embark upon new adventures and to make new friends had to accept the sad news that 2020 was not the year they would have that international experience. 

So, how were we going to be sure our youth programs move forward? Thankfully, our students have had plenty of experience with virtual classrooms and were comfortable with meeting new friends in our sister cities virtually. In the month of April, virtual exchanges with friends in Trier, Germany; Toluca, Mexico; Nimes, France; and Budapest, Hungary all took place. Fort Worth students and their new international friends were able to connect face to face, exchange cultures and information with one another, and just hang out like teenagers do. One of our students who was to travel to Budapest in March shared her experience and you can hear about it below.