Early 2000 Events

	US-Cuba Sister Cities Association
[home] [what's new] [sister index] [events] [search] [e-newsletter] [USCSCA newsbits] [Cuba News]

USCSCA 2000 Conferences, 3/31

Past Events

Early 2000 Events

The US-Cuba Sister Cities Association sponsored two events in May and June of 2000

May: USCSCA Researching People-to-People Exchanges Conference in Cuba , May 19-28, with the actual conference May 20-23. See also updates posted 3/22, 3/31, and 4/4

June: USCSCA National Meeting in Madison, WI, June 9-11. This meeting will offer "nuts and bolts" help for everyone, regardless of where they are in the sister city organizing scale. Many workshops.

Upcoming meetings in Havana, Cuba, 5/00, and Madison, WI, 6/00

The US-Cuba Sister Cities Association is sponsoring two upcoming events in May and June of 2000, of which we hope you will be a part to help strengthen and expand your work and interest in Cuba into long term, sustainable people-to-people partnerships, community exchanges and eventually a full fledged "Sister City" relationship with a community in Cuba. Also to help existing sister cities expand and improve projects in Cuba, and gain support in their home communities.

1. Conference in Habana, Cuba, May 19-28: "Researching People-to-People Exchanges." See Urgent Update if you are on Cubana flight 181. USCSCA representatives will meet with our Cuban counterparts for the purpose of discussing and determining the bilateral procedures and protocols necessary to fulfill our mission. The conference will be May 21-23rd. The rest of the week will be spent in the countryside facilitating different aspects of our work. The conference is only open to USCSCA membership. If you are not yet a member, there is still time to join. Existing sister cities will bring delegations, and members-at-large and sister cities in formation will be assigned regional or specialty groups to work with. This is the first of what we hope will become regular meetings with Cuban counterparts. Please contact USCSCA immediately for information, membership and conference eligibility.

2. National Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, June 9-11th: Will be a nationwide meeting where we will continue getting our "own house in order." This meeting will offer "nuts and bolts" help for everyone, regardless of where they are in the sister city organizing scale. We will report back the procedures agreed upon with the Cubans that will move our work forward. We
will have an up-to-the-minute report on US Cuba relations from the Cuban Interests Section and how that impacts on our work, stateside. We will have useful workshops about a lot of things that make it hard to advance ourselves. We may have folks from Cuba if they can get visas, etc.

We recommend everyone who can attend this conference, it will be invaluable to your efforts. This conference will be held in a building on the lake designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It will be an incredibly uplifting weekend, phenomenal networking possibilities, and essential information to succeed in your work. Information will be forthcoming directly to help make your plans and reservations. Please contact Ricardo Gonzalez in Madison for reservations: Ricardo@cardinalbar.com

Thanks, for more information or your regional coordinator please contact: Lisa Valanti - 412- 563-1519 or USCSCA@AOL.COM

USCSCA 2000 Conferences

Subj: USCSCA 2000 Conferences

There are three major scheduled events for USCSCA in the year 2000. Each one is a component for moving our work forward in different ways.

1. Bi-lateral - Giving voice, establishing partnerships with our Cuban counterparts
2. National - Expanding our base and making USCSCA work for us
3. International - Seeing ourselves and Cuba within the larger Global community -

1. Bi-Lateral Partnership Conference in Havana Cuba, May 21-23, 2000 -

This conference is the first bi-lateral conference between our organizational membership and our Cuban counterparts. This conference will help N. Americans doing sister city work, understand what procedures and criteria Cubans require to formalize a sister city relationship, using the model they use with over 31 other nations.

It will also introduce us to the people responsible for all international exchange programs island wide, and give an overview of the provinces and what possibilities exist for exchanges. Also, help us match up new cities, what cities would Cuba like to choose to twin with?

We will also have ministry representatives from education, health, culture, sports and religion, etc., who will explain how people interested in setting up any exchanges in those sectors might proceed. This will be good for new projects and to expand established bases. Our sister cities work should have diverse components.

We will work out the role that USCSCA will play to liaison with the Cuban National Asamblea, under which all sister city work must be approved.

2. National Conference - Madison Wisconsin, June 9-11,2000 -

This conference is our national conference, which hammers out how we work within the US, under increasingly challenging circumstances to promote genuine people-to-people relationships that lead to sister cities, as are modeled by cities worldwide. This conference is a follow-up on our work in Mobile.

In Madison, we will determine how to dovetail the two systems and sets of circumstances and realities we must work with to achieve our objectives.

Madison will also be where we address problems arising from impediments to standard sister city work-- i.e., travel, licensing, commerce, etc.

3. International World Solidarity Conference - Havana, November 10-13, 2000

This conference will be the largest world solidarity conference ever to take place and will involve delegations from many nations, a sort of people's united nations meeting. A people's "state of the world" conference. It will be awesome. Every Cuba solidarity organization will be sending a delegation, worldwide.

In the US, many organizations will be organizing delegations to participate in this historic event. We anticipate a US delegation of over 1,000 people. In the last world encounter, South Africa alone sent over 500 people! Since the 31 other nations with which Cuba has normalized sister city projects will send delegations to this conference, we hope to be able to have, after the world conference, another brief conference and encounter with all the countries that have sister city relationships with Cuba. From that, we would like to see develop an "International-Cuba Sister Cities" organization to help all of us expand our work. There will be thousands upon thousands of people participating in this encounter -- and we will play a very minor role, but it is the one opportunity when each country will be represented and so a "world meeting of sister nations with Cuba" would be possible to arrange.

Please address any questions to USCSCA@AOL.COM

[home] [what's new] [sister index] [events] [search] [e-newsletter] [USCSCA newsbits] [Cuba News]