Culver City Sister City Committee, Inc. has designed visitors time based in “edutainment.” The students from Iksan City, So. Korea, and a sister city of our city since 1983 visiting every other year and have a general idea about how they will spend time in our city. Our students will be going to Iksan City next summer and they too are prepped before leaving and know what to expect of their visit, life changing educational experiences that can only come from exposure to other cultures through home-stays.
The Trilateral Youth Ambassador Program is completely focused on the Environment and Poverty this year and was granted from the U.S. Department of State through Sister City International and we participated in an extremely rigorous selection process. The Trilateral term describes three entities, Culver City is fortunate to have a Sister City in Lethbridge,
Canada and Uruapan, Mexico. Those relationships began is 1964 for Mexico, our longest relationship and for Canada in 1989.
Twenty two families opened their homes to all of the visitors that coincidentally converged during the same period of time. We were lucky to have had all of the visiting students together on three occasions, the Community Welcome Dinner, at a City Council Meeting and for a tour at the STAR ECO Station.
For the So. Korean delegation a scheduled day’s activities included a guided walking tour of Sony Pictures Entertainment, followed by a very special lunch at the Saki House by Hikari, followed by a tour of the Culver City Police Department, City Hall, Culver City Fire Department and finishing up with a visit to the Farmer’s Market.
That same day the Trilateral Youth Ambassadors started with a Sustainability site visit to an NGO (Non-governmental organization) Ballona Creek Renaissance Jim Lamm, Dennys for lunch and a De-Brief Environment/Sustainability Workshop – Planning a Project – Resource Development, and then a trip up to CA State Park – Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook/Tour that will eventually end at City Hall.
Culver City proudly has four sister cities, and our Culver City Middle School students just returned yesterday from their home-stay program in Kaizuka, Japan, our sister city since 1965. Unique to this particular exchange is that the two chaperones both happen to have been Culver City Immersion students, both the Spanish and Japanese Immersion Programs.
The Culver City Sister City Committee, Inc. is an almost 50 year old organization originated by the Culver City City Council and currently a non-profit. Besides the two Facebook pages (Culver City Sister City Committee and Culver City Sister City Committee Youth Program) with a wealth of information, the organization also has a dedicated website at www.culvercitysistercitycommittee.org
The organization is open to all interested people with the same personal focus of the mission of People to People Exchanges and Citizen Diplomacy. We thank President Eisenhower for his foresight that individuals, not governments make a difference.
Sister City Committee is recruiting to host a student from Kaizuka, Japan in 2013 during the summer and for High School students to go to Iksan City, So. Korea next summer will be shared with a lot of advanced notice. These are two-year family commitments, if you host, you go and if you go you host. It takes the whole family to be involved in these amazing Student Exchange Programs.
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