[Durham INC] Durham Assists with African Sustainability Project

[Blalock, Amy]

CITY OF DURHAM

Office of Public Affairs

101 City Hall Plaza

Durham, NC 27701

 

 

News Release

 

For Details, Contact:

Amy Blalock

Sr. Public Affairs Specialist

(919) 560-4123 x 11253

(919) 475-7735 (cell)

Amy.Blalock at durhamnc.gov <mailto:Amy.Blalock at durhamnc.gov> 

 

For Immediate Release:  November 30, 2010

 

Durham Director Assists with African Sustainability Project in Tanzania

City Solid Waste Director Selected as U.S. Technical Representative to
Arusha, Tanzania

 

DURHAM, N.C.- The City of Durham's best practices in efficient and
cost-effective curbside waste collection will soon arrive in Tanzania,
thanks to the Sister Cities of Durham and the expertise of the City's
Department of Solid Waste Management.

 

Donald Long, director of the City's Department of Solid Waste
Management, will provide on-site assistance in designing a curbside
waste collection and convenience center service for the Durham's Sister
City in Arusha, Tanzania.  Long is being sponsored by the Sister Cities
of Durham-Arusha Committee from December 5 - 18 to provide technical
expertise in waste management.

 

"I am honored to serve as a resource to Arusha. Proper collection and
disposal of waste is critical to public health and safety and is a
charge we undertake diligently here in Durham," said Long. "Developing
an efficient and convenient collection service will help Arusha to meet
their residents' needs and encourage proper waste disposal. It is an
international honor that our community's methods and protocols will soon
be implemented in Tanzania to improve the quality of life of its
residents."  

 

The Sister Cities of Durham-Arusha Committee was awarded a two-year,
$115,000 grant to perform projects that address sanitation, health, and
water issues in urban areas of Africa. This project is funded by a $7.5
million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "We are proud to
be part of the second phase of the Sister Cities International's Africa
Urban Poverty Alleviation Program. With this grant we will be able to
assist the Arusha municipal government and community to complete several
sanitation projects involving solid and liquid waste management," said
Aisha Abdul-Ali, former chair of the Sister Cities of Durham-Arusha
Committee.

 

Long assisted with the grant application by outlining the essential
steps required to develop a waste management organization and program,
which included an infrastructure, service area, and educational
development plan. The Sister Cities of Durham-Arusha Committee is
funding Long's trip to provide hands-on assistance and expertise in
developing Arusha's waste management program.

 

According to Patrick Madden, president and chief executive officer of
Sister Cities International, these sister cities represent some of the
strongest partnerships between the United States and Africa and will
become the measure of how cities can help each other and leave an
enduring legacy in tangible ways. Seventeen grant recipients were
selected by an independent panel of five experts in the areas of sister
city relationships, aid administration, and international development.
The other recipients include:     

*         Baltimore, Md. and Luxor, Egypt   

*         Chicago, Ill. and Casablanca, Morocco

*         Delray Beach, Fla. and Moshi, Tanzania

*         Jacksonville, Fla. and Port Elizabeth, South Africa

*         Long Beach, Calif. and Mombasa, Kenya

*         Milwaukee County, Wis. and Buffalo City, South Africa

*         Milwaukee, Wis. and uMhlathuze, South Africa

*         Oakland, Calif. and Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

*         Richmond, Va. and Segou, Mali

*         Riverside, Calif. and Obuasi, Ghana

*         Seattle, Wash. and Mombasa, Kenya

*         Sonoma, Calif. and Aswan, Egypt

*         St. Louis, Mo. and St. Louis, Senegal

*         Toledo, Ohio and Tanga, Tanzania

*         Urbana, Ill. and Zomba, Malawi

*         Wilmington, Del. and Osogbo, Nigeria

 

For more information contact Aisha Abdul-Ali, former chair of the Sister
Cities of Durham-Arusha Committee, via e-mail at circnc at gmail.com, by
phone at (919) 225-7205, or visit the Sister Cities of Durham, Inc.
website at www.sistercities-durham.org. 

 

About Sister Cities International and African Urban Poverty Alleviation
Program 

Sister Cities International is the only U.S.-based organization
dedicated to creating long-term city-to-city relationships between
communities in the U.S. and abroad. Created by U.S. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower in 1956 at a White House summit, the organization is a leader
in people-to-people exchanges with a network that boasts over 650 U.S.
cities with more than 2,000 sister city relationships in 136 countries
on six continents. Currently, the organization has 124 partnerships in
36 countries in Africa. To learn more, visit www.sister-cities.org. 

 

African Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (AUPAP) is a three-year
project to alleviate poverty in 24 African cities through water,
sanitation, and health initiatives led by U.S. and African sister city
programs. U.S. sister city programs collaborate with their African
counterparts to identify and address the most critical problems in these
sectors, which form a barrier to sustained development in urban areas.
The sister cities network is capitalizing on local members' technical
and professional expertise; links to city government, academia,
nonprofits, and the private sector; and the long-term, people-to-people
relationships they have developed over time to create projects that are
both technically sound and based at the grass-roots level. Sister Cities
International is also gathering a group of international development
experts to aid in the planning and execution of the projects. To learn
more, visit www.sister-cities.org/programs/aupap/about.cfm. 

 

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