One day a year Madison’s Overture Center for the Arts transforms into an international cultural mecca; representatives from Madison’s eight sister cities come to town.

The annual International Fest is only part of the city’s exchange with metropolises around the globe.

Madison’s eight sister cities come from all regions of the world. Asia, Latin America and Europe each have cities that hold partnerships with Madison in cultural, social and educational exchanges.

A sister city is formed when a group or individual with experience and interest in partnerships with another location proposes the idea to City Council. A resolution is passed saying Madison is in favor of the collaboration, which comes with $1,000 in financial  support from the city. Many of the partnerships also rely on donations or various grants or other sources for funding of the partnerships.

The exchanges that occur between Madison and the various cities involve cultural, humanitarian and academic benefits to both locations.

“Obviously they need doors open for them over there, just as when they come here they need doors open for them coming this way,” Eric Lewandowski, president of the Madison-Freiburg Sister City Committee, said.

Madison’s Sister Cities:

• Ainaro, East Timor
• Arcatao, El Salvador
• Camagüey, Cuba
• Freiburg, Germany
• Mantova, Italy
• Obihiro, Japan
• Tepatitlán, Mexico
• Vilnius, Lithuania

Tepatitlán, Mexico 2012

Before Madison developed its newest sister relationship with the city of Tepatitlán in Jalisco, Wisconsin had already been a sister state with the tequila-regional state of Jalisco.

Salvador Carranza, academic planner for University of Wisconsin System Administration and a member of Madison’s Tepatitlán Sister City Committee, said the connection between the states developed because of research that UW’s Nelson Institute and University of Guadalajara were independently working on: a project to find the genetic ancestor to modern corn. When the discovery was made at University of Guadalajara, researchers from Wisconsin reached out and began the partnership.

Now, the cities continue to partner through the universities by building partnerships with student service learning projects and working with families in starting micro-enterprise cooperative businesses. Carranza said the students are often involved in social work, and the materials these families make are often sold in Madison.

“When the students go there, they stay for either a semester or summer, and they bring the things that the families make and sell them at festivals, we send the money back to them,” Carranza said.

Camaguey, Cuba 1994

Despite historical restrictions in interactions between the United States and Cuba, the Madison-Camagüey Sister City Association has endeavored to bring together these two communities.

The partnership began primarily as a humanitarian outreach, which developed into what is now part of Wisconsin Medical Project, a nonprofit organization with a mission to deliver medicines and medical supplies to the Eduardo Agramonte Provincial Pediatric Hospital in Camagüey, Cuba.

In addition to the humanitarian outreach, Madison and Camagüey are culturally interconnected.

“We have a cultural friendship,” Jon Heinrich, representative of Madison’s Camaguey partnership,  said. “We support their chamber orchestra, have had artists from Cuba come to Madison and have shown their work at galleries.”

Heinrich said there is collaboration between the sister city organization and Edgewood College to bring more cultural exchange between the two cities.

Arcatao, El Salvador 1986

Madison’s sister city in El Salvador shares a unique relationship in that many similar mining concerns that occur throughout Wisconsin are paralleled in the community of Arcatao. The sister relationship is closely involved with student outreach through Edgewood College.

The emphasis at first was on rebuilding infrastructure and community after the war, whereas today the focus is on environmental issues surrounding mining and water rights, and their interconnection with economic and social justice.

Since 2008, El Salvador has placed an “administrative freeze” on mining permits. President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has vowed not to allow mining in the country, although he faces challenges in permanently enacting it with the legislature.

Similarly, Bob Seitz, a spokesperson for Gogebic Taconite, said the company has postponed submitting its mining application until the fall of 2015 for an area in Penokee Hills.

“[Consultants] have found more sensitive areas than are on the latest state Department of Natural Resources map,” The Wisconsin State Journal reported.

The Madison Coalition Against Lethal Mining, a group working to educate communities in Wisconsin about the effects of large-scale mining, is also interested in mining issues abroad.

“Like El Salvador, Wisconsin is facing the destructive effects of corporate mining with proposed gold and iron mines and the expansion of sand mining for hydraulic fracturing,” said an MCALM pamphlet.

Freiburg, Germany 1987

Madison’s partnership with a similar university town in Germany is one of shared environmental interests with Freiburg.

Lewandowski said both cities are similarly-minded in their population, university proximity and environmental and liberal interests.

“Even in the geography, Madison has got its lakes and Freiburg has got its Black Forest Hills that make them both picturesque areas,” Lewandowski said.

He said there are exchanges between UW’s German department and Freiburgs Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, a partnership the German university carries out with University of Michigan and University of Minnesota as well.

Freiburg, as one of Germany’s hubs for renewable energy and environmental research, Lewandowski said, draws academics from Wisconsin and vice versa, so the partnership has made sense between Madison and Germany’s only sizable city with a mayor from a “green” party.

Obihiro, Japan 2006

Both at 43 degrees north in latitude, Madison and Obihiro, Japan established a partnership that focuses on both cities’ similarities in agriculture and environmentalism.

“Probably the most long-lasting project we’ve been doing even before we became a sister city was the exchange in the study of community mental health,” Jo Oyama-Miller, Board President for Madison-Obihiro Sister Cities, Inc., said.

Exchanges between the cities began with academic goals with mental health research with the Madison Model of Community Based Mental Health Care.

Oyama-Miller said the program has been one of the most active sister cities, delegating student exchanges every year between University of Wisconsin and Obihiro University of Agricultural and Veterinary Medicines.

“With Madison, Obihiro shares its agriculture and that it is designated as one of Japan’s top environmental cities,” Oyama-Miller said.