City partnership Salzburg-León
The town twinning between the city of Salzburg and the city of León in Nicaragua was decided on June 24, 1984 by the Salzburg municipal council. It emerged from a small solidarity group and consists of two associations with voluntary members in Salzburg and León . The founding idea of the town twinning stems from the need to officially integrate solidarity and development policy into city politics. The core of the town twinning are cultural relationships, improvements to the communal infrastructure and the implementation of specific projects in León.
history
After the military coup in Chile in 1973 , an “Austrian Solidarity Committee Chile” was formed. From this organization active Salzburgers with representatives of socialist, communist and Catholic youth groups formed the Latin America committee. With the Sandinista Revolution at the end of the 1970s, numerous expressions of solidarity arose in Austria and Europe, which wanted to make a contribution to the construction of a new Nicaraguan state.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the Mayor of Salzburg, Josef Reschen, and the ÖVP parliamentary group were convinced of the idea of a city partnership with a city in Nicaragua. The ÖVP approved the project after the SPÖ agreed to a town twinning with the ÖVP-favored city of Singida in Tanzania . During the subsequent Contra War , the then Nicaraguan Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal visited the city of Salzburg in 1983. The Catholic priest, revolutionary and poet Ernesto Cardenal submitted the proposal for a partnership with León, the second largest and most ecclesiastical city in Nicaragua. On June 24, 1984, the Salzburg-León town partnership was finally decided by the Salzburg municipal council.
In the course of its existence, the city partnership has implemented various projects, such as the construction of kindergartens and schools, the expansion of the urban infrastructure through the sewer system of a district, and disaster relief after Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
structure
The Salzburg part of the Salzburg-León city partnership has an office in the Salzburg North-South Center in the ARGEkultur building . The town twinning is financed by donations and subsidies from the city of Salzburg. The Salzburg counterpart in León is the “Dario-Mozart” association, named after the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío and the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart .
activities
The activities of the city partnership Salzburg-León include z. B. the organization of trips to Nicaragua for members, the accommodation and care of Nicaraguan guests as well as the implementation of projects. In addition to various events and excursions, the association offers its members free Spanish courses, and all members also receive a subscription to the Nicaragua News.
The town twinning works with both Austrian Nicaragua and European León initiatives. Other European twin cities of León besides Salzburg are Hamburg (D) , Lund (SE) , Oxford (GB) , Utrecht (NL) and Saragossa (ES) .
Current projects
Tourism project
A sustainable tourism project has developed into the main project of the Salzburg-León city partnership in recent years. It is divided into two parts. One part is the club's own, not-for-profit tour operator Loro Trips, which offers both individual Nicaraguan trips and language trips to León. The tour operator works closely with local businesses to maximize added value for the Nicaraguan population. The other part is imparting tourism know-how to young Nicaraguans. Salzburg is well suited for this because tourism is an important economic factor there . Every year, the city partnership provides two students from León with a partial scholarship at the Salzburg Tourism School Klessheim and supports them during their stay.
Scholarship project
This originally Austria-wide project supported Nicaraguan children and adolescents from 2002 to 2009, for whom access to schooling was not or only very difficultly due to their social situation, from school entry to university. In 2009 the 70% cofinancing by the federal government was stopped, whereupon the pupils and students supported ran the risk of having to drop out of their education. In the course of this, the city partnership between Salzburg and León took on direct responsibility for some of the scholarship holders, and between 18 and 28 children and young people were able to finance their training between 2010 and 2012.
Painting project
The “Naive Painting” project supports artists in León, for example by financing painting utensils or organizing sales exhibitions in Salzburg.
Partnerships
University partnership
In 1990 the Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua (UNAN) León decided to establish a partnership for the mutual exchange of students and academics and for joint projects. German courses are held at UNAN together with the University of Hamburg. There is also an exchange of lecturers from UNAN University and Paris Lodron University. Students have the opportunity to do an exchange semester at the partner university. In the geographical area in particular, there are many projects, such as the creation of a digital city map for León. In addition, a GIS department was set up in León, which has been continuously developed since then.
School partnerships
The starting point for the establishment of school partnerships in 1985 was the literacy campaign of the Nicaraguan Revolution . The grants from the Salzburg partner schools are still mainly used for renovation work; breakfast was also financed for the children for a number of years. To date, three Salzburg schools have maintained solidarity contact with their partner schools.