Cartagena embraced as Sister City

Cartagena embraced as Sister City



LORRAINE THOMPSON
Record Correspondent
Publication Date: 10/09/07

Cartagena, population almost 900,000, deserved another review, according to Consuelo Lippi, past president of the St. Augustine Sister Cities Association. Lippi's two-year term as president ended Oct. 2. The restoration of Cartagena as a sister city was high on Lippi's agenda.

In early September, Lippi and a St. Augustine contingency, which included Nettie Ruth Brown, past president of the association, Susan Burk, St. Augustine city commissioner, and Jim Piggott, a city staff member, traveled to Cartagena armed with a letter of interest from St. Augustine Mayor Joe Boles.

The group found the environment to be safe and the officials of Cartagena eager to get on with the sisterhood relationship.

In fact, Nicolas Curi, the mayor of Cartagena, issued an official decree to that effect while the group was visiting.

"We didn't expect any response until maybe next year," Lippi said. "We were all surprised."

On Sept. 28, Yolanda Castillo, representing Cartagena as organizer of the renewed city relationship, made a surprise visit to St. Augustine.

"She came here to reaffirm the Cartagena mayor's desire to renew the relationship with St. Augustine," Lippi said.

While in St. Augustine, Castillo visited the Castillo de San Marco and announced that administrators of two forts in Cartagena, San Felipe de Barajas and Boca Chica, are interested in setting up historic and cultural relationships with St. Augustine's Castillo de San Marco.

"This is just the beginning of what we hope will be a long enriching sister city relationship," said Lippi.

Among other possibilities: Program and student exchanges between the University of Fine Arts of Cartagena and Flagler College or St. Johns River Community College.

While Cartagena has a school for deaf students, the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, located in St. Augustine, may be another opportunity for an exchange program.

Brown, who has been involved in the city's sister program since the mid 1970s, said that when they visited the school for the deaf in Cartagena in September, she felt that something had to be done to help those children.

"It's been on my mind ever since," Brown said. "The Spanish Club of St. Joseph Academy is already getting involved. They're going to send books in English to the kindergarten class in Cartagena. That's just the start."


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