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Page Last Updated:
Wednesday, 8 October 2008 |
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Home>Bendigo>International Relationships>Sister Cities
| About Sister Cities | | The Sister City movement is a worldwide concept, which originated in the United States of America shortly after World War II-a period in history, like now, where people wanted to focus on community values and exchanges to encourage international understanding and ultimately world peace.
The principles of furthering communication and exchanges at a person-to-person level through City-to-City affiliations was adopted by Australia in 1980 when the Australian Sister City Association was founded. Today there are some 200 municipalities across Australia that have over 460 overseas affiliations. ASCA is part of an international effort to encourage understanding and cooperation by promoting communication and exchanges between ordinary citizens from different nationalities and cultures.
On 7th September 1987, the City of Greater Bendigo established their first Sister City link with Los Altos in California, USA. In the following years relationships with Tianshui, China (1992) and Penzance, United Kingdom (1996) emerged. These affiliations have resulted in the establishment of student exchange programs, vocational advise programs and numerous cultural exchanges.
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| Los Altos | | Located in California, 35 miles south east of San Francisco, near the foothills of the coastal mountains and within the sight of the lower end of San Francisco Bay.
Los Altos is a residential town without major industries, but with many local businesses. The local residents work in many of the design and production companies surrounding Los Altos in the region referred to as Silicon Valley.
The relationship between Bendigo and Los Altos commenced in 1987 and since then several delegations have visited involving cultural exchanges and events. More recently Los Altos' own Main Street Singers performed in Bendigo.
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| Penzance, Cornwall, United Kingdom | | Bendigo's Cornish sister city, Penzance is located on the shores of picturesque Mounts Bay in western Cornwall. With a district population of more than twenty thousand, the town boasts a vibrant retail centre, a host of restaurants and traditional pubs, Regency style buildings and colourful public gardens displaying a range of exotic plants in the temperate climate.
Major industries are tourism, fishing and service and manufacturing enterprises. Culture and the arts are prominent, and there are many festivals, possibly the best known of which is the mid-summer Golowan Festival.
Bendigo's sister city relationship with Penzance recognizes the strong links with Cornwall which began in Bendigo's earliest days, when the Cornish formed a major component of the huge wave of migration to the goldfields.
Cornishmen have made a great contribution to Bendigo's development in the years since, primarily with their hard rock mining expertise, but also as mayors, councillors, preachers (the first religious service), teachers, foundry operators, journalists, business proprietors and more. James Curnow was Bendigo mayor five times, and Sir John Quick Bendigo's first representative in federal Parliament.
Indeed, there remains a large number of Bendigonians with Cornish ancestry today.
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| Tianshui | | One of the original cities of the Tang Dynasty Tianshui is steeped in fascinating culture and also prides itself on flourishing industries in textiles and handi-crafts. It is a popular tourist destination of the ancient Silk Road.
Several delegations from China have visited Bendigo over the past fifteen years.
Local artists have ventured here too to share ancient creative traditions.
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| Contact Us | | Manager
Community & Cultural Development
PO Box 733
Bendigo VIC 3552
Ph: 03 5434 6464
Fax: 03 5434 6473
TTY: 03 5434 6460
E-mail: BendigoSisterCitiesCommittee@bendigo.vic.gov.au
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