WELCOME TO BIRMINGHAM SISTER CITIES
What is Birmingham Sister Cities?
The Birmingham Sister Cities Commission is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering international and intercultural relationships as well as community relations in order to facilitate foreign direct investment and economic development in Birmingham, Alabama.
It is our belief that intercultural understanding and diverse person to person communication expands the potential for growth and ideas. Our relationships with our Sister Cities enable these types of exchanges by establishing a medium of communication between Birmingham and our partner cities around the globe.
For more information on our mission and our values, visit About BSCC.
Who Are Our Sister Cities?
Birmingham’s oldest Sister City partnership is with Hitachi, Japan, a relationship that began in April 1982. Since then, Birmingham has partnered with cities in Ukraine, China, Ghana, and England as well as many others. Also, in 2005, Birmingham became the first city to have a joint signing with an Arab and an Israeli Sister City.
For more information about our many partnerships and activities, check out our country pages and read through our recent Newsletters!
What We Do
As a commission, each of our citizen-led Country Committees helps organize events and exchanges between Birmingham and our Sister Cities abroad. In 2017, we organized an exchange between our Sister Cities in Jordan and Israel where we sent students from Philips Academy to visit, learn, and engage in the culture of the region and build relationships with the people they met. They were hosted by homestays and were afforded the opportunity to immerse themselves in the local culture thanks to relationships established by our Sister City relationships.
Also, Birmingham Sister Cities helps coordinate local cultural events related to international cultures that reside within Birmingham. For example, we have played a critical role in organizing the Birmingham Chinese New Year Festival for 12 years. In 2018, we hosted a delegation from our Friendship City Chaoyang District – Beijing, China, for this event and artists from the Beijing Opera performed in Birmingham! Another example of an exchange is between Birmingham and our Sister City Plzeň of the Czech Republic. Plzeň is known worldwide for Pilsner beer, so Birmingham local breweries and breweries in Plzeň created a collaborative beer that had its debut at the 2017 Magic City Brew Fest.
Birmingham Sister Cities Commission has relationships with the Japan American Society of Alabama, the International World Games Association, and other prominent cultural groups. We have assisted in video conferences between a former youth ambassador and business contacts in Hitachi, Japan, fostered connections between Liverpool, UK and research institutions in Birmingham, and much more.
In addition to promoting business and community engagement, we can also lend assistance with things like finding translators and discussing complex international questions or ideas.