Education Minister Wycliffe Smith with Calvin Mardembrough as they prepare for the Tallahassee-St. Maarten celebrations.
PHILIPSBURG–St. Maarten and the City of Tallahassee, Florida are celebrating twenty years as sister cities today Monday, September 23, 2019.
The relationship was established in 1999 as the territories recognised the mutual benefit and potential partnership, particularly in education and tourism. As the Floridian capital recognises this year’s anniversary, the Government of St. Maarten and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (ECYS) will be represented by a two-person delegation from the Division Study Financing. Senior Policy Officer Calvin Mardembrough and newly appointed officer Jessica Rogers will be present to witness the celebration as well as visit universities, interact with school and city officials and students.
“St. Maarten is committed to this great relationship of city and country, and therefore it is important for the study financing staff to build on its network as there is an increasing amount of study financing recipients still choosing to further their education at one of the schools in Tallahassee,” it was stated in a press release on Monday.
Chief of Staff of the cabinet of the ECYS Ministry Peter J Gittens with Stephen Knight and Lililita Johnson-Forbes of the Tallahassee-Sint Maarten Foundation during their working visit to St. Maarten.
Mardembrough and Rogers will be on this working visit during a week of what is expected to be a very hectic schedule of activities in Tallahassee. Earlier this year, ECYS Minister Wycliffe Smith signed an agreement to extend the partnership with Tallahassee where many of St. Maarten’s young people go to pursue their tertiary education with the assistance of study financing. Mardembrough has been instrumental in the development of the relationship between St. Maarten and colleges in Tallahassee.
According to Smith, “St. Maarten and Tallahassee’s relationship is strong. Our students are given such care and special treatment, it is as close as it gets to having a ‘home away from home’ This is all possible because of the work done by key persons in both territories over the years.”
Smith expressed his appreciation for the groundwork laid by the founders of the Tallahassee-St. Maarten Foundation and to those who currently maintain the standards such as current president of the foundation Stephen Knight and vice president Lililita Johnson Forbes.
The Office of the Mayor of Tallahassee has maintained a significant friendship with St. Maarten. Today Monday, Smith will be meeting with various persons who contributed over the years to keeping this agreement alive including Arthur Lugisse who was instrumental in this process. The Government of St. Maarten looks forward to maintaining this partnership with Tallahassee, it was stated in the release.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/91118-tallahassee-and-st-maarten-mark-20-years-as-sister-cities
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