A process of affiliation between cities all over the World started after WWII. The USA Sister Cities Program was initiated in 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and from then the Sister Cities International organization grew up (www.sister-cities.org), helping to link over 900 USA cities with 1.500 cities located in 110 different countries.

The program goal is to show that people and their communities can make a difference in the World through the international exchange of people, ideas and cultures.

Bariloche feels that a sister cities program can have great importance for the community, driving to global integration with new techniques and technologies to support commerce, health system, environment democratization and tourism. We wish to see the sister cities program on the front line working in popular areas, helping to lead community development, as well as to see its members collaborating with counterparts of other countries.

We expect the sister cities program and its volunteers to represent all Bariloche community sectors and all aspects of its society: diversity, history, aspirations. Our wish is that this sister cities program becomes our welcome to the international community.

Far from being limited to have links with a single city in a single country, the Bariloche Sister Cities Committee hopes to have many sister cities bonded in a close relationship with a big part of our community. To achieve this we seek to work as an international visitors center, protocol office and a club of friends. Therefore the committee members and volunteers should work as diplomats, offering their intercultural experience and knowledge of foreign countries, cultures and languages.

For these sister cities relations to succeed, actions should be based on a solid local program of volunteers, willing to invest their time, talent and resources to develop a lasting relation with their abroad counterparts. It is of great importance that the members and municipal representatives are fully committed with the program goals and objectives. To succeed, the relation must be erected around a history of cooperation between both cities, incorporating the actual needs of the program and anticipate future ones, as the program evolves, adapts and grows.

For this reason the Committee, adopting the Sister Cities International (SCI) standards, has revised and extended the contents of the SCI “Building Your Local Program” Guide , to be up to the demands of a continuous growing and changing net. This guide has been designed to help SCI members to organize and strengthen their programs, whether seeking to establish a first relation, or for recently linked cities or for cities linked with several sister cities since long ago.

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