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DULUTH — A 10-member delegation from Duluth’s Japanese sister city will spend a week in the city beginning Thursday, meeting with educators, researchers, community leaders and residents as part of an exchange focused on health, belonging and quality of life.
The visitors from Ohara/Isumi City, Japan, will be in Duluth from Sept. 10-17 through Duluth Sister Cities International. The theme of the visit is “Well-Being and Community Happiness,” with the delegation examining how communities create connections and conditions that help residents thrive.
“This exchange is really about asking what makes a place somewhere people can flourish,” said Christy Rounds, executive director of Duluth Sister Cities International. “Some of the answers are found in health and education. Others are found in nature, storytelling, cultural traditions, friendship and simply creating opportunities for people to belong. Our Japanese friends are coming to learn from Duluth, but we have just as much to learn from them.”
The visit will include stops at the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth, the College of St. Scholastica, Hartley Nature Center and Hartley Nature Preschool. Delegates also are scheduled to attend Duluth’s Harvest Festival and meet with Mayor Roger Reinert at City Hall.
At the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth, the delegation will visit the Memory Keepers Medical Discovery Team, which studies dementia and brain health in Indigenous communities. The group will learn about approaches to healthy aging that incorporate elders, memory, storytelling and community.
At St. Scholastica, delegates will meet with psychology instructor Laurie Anderson, whose teaching has included happiness and well-being and who has led educational travel to countries known for high measures of quality of life.
The week also will highlight nearly four decades of ties between Duluth and Ohara/Isumi City. The relationship has included student and adult exchanges, cultural programming and the Peace Bells located in Duluth and Japan.
That relationship recently inspired a local beer. Canal Park Brewing Co. introduced Two Bells Japanese Lager, named after the two Peace Bells. Brewer Zach More, a recent University of Minnesota Duluth graduate, traveled to Ohara and photographed the Japanese Peace Bell that helped inspire the beer. Members of the delegation are expected to sample the lager during their visit.
Several events will be open to the public.
The delegation is scheduled to participate in a Peace Bell ringing at 9 a.m. Friday at the Peace Bell Garden in Enger Park. A visit to the Great Lakes Aquarium is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, followed by a Vista Fleet cruise at 9:20 a.m. Monday.
A community dinner with the delegation will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Harborside Ballroom at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. The dinner is intended to give local residents an opportunity to meet the visitors and celebrate the relationship between the two communities.
The sister-city relationship has developed largely through direct exchanges between residents rather than formal government diplomacy.
“This is grassroots diplomacy,” Rounds said. “International relationships don’t only happen between national governments. They happen when people sit across a table from one another, share stories, walk through each other’s communities and discover how much they have in common. That is what sister cities are all about.”
Duluth Sister Cities International works to build international relationships through citizen diplomacy, educational exchanges and community partnerships.
The Japanese delegation will remain in Duluth through Sept. 17.
