K’bo Council cements partnership with La Crosse City, USA

By Ndjodzefe Nestor in Kumbo

Kumbo Council in Bui Division of the North West Region and La Crosse City, Wisconsin in the United States of America have concretized their partnership with the visit of a delegation from La Crosse to Kumbo Concil.
    The visit comes two years after the Mayor of Kumbo Council, Njong Donatus led a a strong nine man delegation to La Crosse, USA in from June 29th to July 8th 2014 for a visit and to seal a twinning deal with the La Crosse City.
    The core of this visit was the city to city meeting whereby the delegation sat face to
face with the executive of the Kumbo Council and the administration of Bui Division in a roundtable conference to discuss the way forward of the partnership.
    During the meeting, Lord Mayor Njong Fonyuy Donatus of the Kumbo Council in his welcome address said the meeting was an opportunity for the two cities to look at ways of further strengthening the relationship.
    He appreciated the delegation for the wonderful reception they accorded him and his team when they visited La Crosse in 2014. Mayor Njong went on to say Kumbo needed help in the health, educational, infrastructural and agricultural domains, as the delegation had already moved round and visited those institutions. He however said the people of Kumbo have a very rich culture that can be of great interest to the people of La Crosse.
    In response, the representative of Mayor Tim Kabat of La Crosse, Sara Sullivan extended the greetings from the Mayor of La Crosse through a recorded video and a personal letter to the Mayor of Kumbo. Sara said she had observed a good number of challenges faced by various institutions they had already visited, saying there was need to help out.

    In addition, the team leader Dr. Lee Rasch regretted that the project to train a Library intern from Kumbo did not come to fruition because the US Embassy-Cameroon refused the intern an entry visa into the USA .
    He said authorities of La Crosse would discuss with the embassy so that future visas are made possible to people of Kumbo who will eventually be travelling to La Crosse. Most importantly, Dr. Lee declared that the Kumbo Council should identify community projects and channel through the Kumbo Rotary Club to La Crosse.
    He went on to say school exchanges are also feasible in the partnership, a situation whereby teacher to teacher or student to student communication and exchange visits could be enhanced.
    This part of the visit also constituted exchange of gifts among La Crosse and Kumbo.
    This Sister City relationship was formed following Kumbo Council’s request for twinning in 2012. The Councilors of Kumbo Municipality sitting in an ordinary session in December 2012 also took a resolution, whereby the Lord Mayor of Kumbo was empowered to formalize this Sister City relationship.
    On March 14, 2013, the City of La Crosse Common Council passed a resolution approving the Kumbo Council as a sister city.
    To this effect, a La Crosse Wisconsin delegation led by Dr. Lee Rasch, who is the President of the Western College and head of the Twinning Commission in the City of La Crosse, accompanied by his spouse was sent to Kumbo on the 18th of June 2013 with the official acceptance letter and the City of La Crosse Deliberation to twin with Kumbo.