The Houston Chronicle
July 14, 2005, Thursday 2 STAR EDITION

Area cities have ‘adopted’ sisters;
Galveston has participated in at least eight such agreements

by KELLYE NEUWEILER, HOUSTON CHRONICLE CORRESPONDENT

Though he has lived in Galveston for more than 20 years and considers
himself a Texan, Ray Koshy still feels a strong connection to his
native India.

Realizing that few in his adopted city knew much about Indian
culture, Koshy and others from his home country lobbied Galveston City
Council to forge a partnership of sorts with the city of his birth –
Trivandrum, the capital of the state of Kerala in India.

The group proposed that Galveston make Trivandrum a sister city under
a program introduced in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Today, nearly 700 U.S. cities participate in sister-city programs, many
of them partnering with multiple cities, according to Sister Cities
International, a nonprofit organization that oversees sister-city
partnerships.

In Galveston County, a handful of cities, including Seabrook, Nassau
Bay, and Galveston, have active sister-city programs.

In 1994, to the delight of Koshy and his comrades, Galveston City
Council designated Trivandrum a sister city. In Trivandrum, the
program has been well-received.

“The sister-city people from Trivandrum are telling us that they want
to replicate a beautiful Galveston building in Trivandrum and call it
Galveston House. It will be a symbol of America in our sister city,”
said Koshy, 57, a nurse in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

In addition to Trivandrum, Galveston has sister-city relationships
with at least seven cities, including Nigata, Japan; Veracruz, Mexico;
Stavanger, Norway; Cape Town, South Africa; Tamsui, on the island of
Taiwan; Progreso, Mexico; and Armavir, Armenia.

Galveston may have even more sister cities that city staff are not
aware of, City Secretary Barbara Lawrence said.

The city tracked and administered the programs until the Galveston
Chamber of Commerce took over most administrative duties last year,
Lawrence said. The chamber is still sorting through records.

City officials oversee such official business as greeting dignitaries,
issuing proclamations and accepting and receiving gifts, but beyond
that, sister-city contacts and activities overwhelmingly are fueled
and funded by volunteers such as Koshy, who are interested in keeping
the programs alive.

Society keeps busy

The Galveston-Trivandrum Sister City Society, one of Galveston’s most
active sister-city organizations, sponsors regular educational and
cultural events and goodwill visits between the cities.

Over the past decade, several delegations from Trivandrum have visited
Galveston, and several Galvestonians have visited Trivandrum.

Earlier this year, the Galveston-Trivandrum Sister City Society raised
more than $ 7,000 to aid Indian victims of last year’s tsunami in
Southeast Asia.

Launched three years ago, Seabrook’s partnerships with its sister
city – Santa Cruz, which is in the Galapagos Islands chain that is
part of Ecuador – is young but very active.

That relationship was sparked after Seabrook residents expressed
interest in developing a program, Mayor Robin Riley said.

Because Seabrook has a thriving ecotourism industry, he said, “it was
logical that we partner with a city that had similar interests. The
Galapagos Islands is the pinnacle of all ecotourism sites in the
world.”

Galapagos Island officials, in turn, expressed interest in a
relationship with Seabrook, and “the rest is history,” Riley said.

As similar as the two communities are in terms of industry, Riley
said, they are strikingly different in other areas. Because Seabrook
is much more affluent than Santa Cruz, “we’ve sent them toys (to
distribute) during Christmas, equipment for their small hospital,
toys, and computers.”

During one visit to Santa Cruz, a delegation from Seabrook delivered
computer cameras that were installed at City Hall and the Darwin
Institute, which is an internationally renowned institute for
ecological and environmental studies.

Similar cameras installed at Seabrook Intermediate School allow
students to communicate with their peers in the Galapagos Islands
and learn about environmental issues.

Educational opportunities are a valuable component of sister-city
relationships, volunteers say.

The Galveston-Niigata, Japan sister-city program sponsors a cultural
exchange nearly every year, said Raquel Gonzales, who has been active
in the program for about five years.

This summer, Gonzales will be among a local group visiting Niigata
to commemorate the partnership’s 40th anniversary.

A narrow focus

Other sister-city relationships have narrower, more utilitarian
focuses.

Galveston’s relationship with Armevir, Armenia, for example, is driven
by a group at UTMB committed to helping develop a community-based,
primary-care delivery system in the region.

The program, which was established in 2001, continues to be a catalyst
for improving Armevir’s and all of Armenia’s healthcare system,
said Cissy Yoes, UTMB’s director of community outreach.

UTMB-Galveston operates a “train-the-trainer” program for its Armevir
counterparts. To date, almost 50 physicians and nurses from Armevir
have visited UTMB for hands-on training, which they share with
professionals back home.

Last year, the Armenian government adopted the program as a model for
the entire country, committing to provide funding through the Armenian
Ministry of Health so our partners can use the train-the-trainer
program to train all the doctors and nurses in Armenia, Yoes said.

While sister-city partnerships often are viewed as opportunities
to develop commerce, realizing that goal often proves to be a slow
process.

“We’ve had several parties show interest in opening up Ecuadorian shops
or restaurants, but nothing has come to fruition yet,” Riley said.

In the short time that the chamber has overseen Galveston’s programs,
chamber President Gina Spagnola said she is not aware of any concrete
commercial initiatives that have resulted.

However, she added that because sister cities often are similar
geographically and demographically, “city officials learn a lot from
each other” even in the absence of business partnerships by sharing
their approaches to economic development.

And, according to one of Nassau Bay’s sister-city coordinators,
the partnerships often provide opportunities for businesses to share
ideas and information.

Nassau Bay’s sister city, Star City, Russia, houses the Russian
equivalent of the Johnson Space Center. That relationship, says
sister-city program assistant Thomas Cone, has been an important
springboard for the informal exchange of information between companies
in the aerospace industry.

“There’s no question that the partnership has benefited both cities,”
he said. “I’d say it has enriched everyone involved.”