Sister-City Committee delegates meet Egyptian officials on the Nile

Sonoma resident and chair of the Sonoma, California-Aswan, Egypt Sister-City Committee, Sherri Ferris, recently returned from Aswan, Egypt, where she led delegation members of the San Francisco Bay Area “Sacramento Seminar” as they met with the Aswan-Sonoma Sister City Chair, Dr. Ossama A. W. Abdel Meguid, director of the Nubian Museum in Aswan.
While in Egypt, the group met with many high-level officials, exploring current affairs and political systems, offering the potential for exchanges and collaboration with Bay Area institutions such as the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art.
Ferris, of Protocol Professionals, Inc., and the delegation of political affairs experts were hosted in Cairo at the embassy residence of U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey, who discussed the importance of United States’ role in the Middle East. They were briefed by Michael Slackman, Cairo bureau chief for The New York Times. They were also welcomed at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, by Secretary-General, Dr. Zahi Hawass and at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry by Sonoma-Aswan Sister City founder, Ambassador Abderahman Salaheldin, who serves as Egypt’s Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Arab world and the Middle East.
While in Aswan, the group was hosted at a dinner in their honor by the Governor of Aswan, Egypt, Moustafa Elsayed, who was presented with Sonoma pictorial books and a framed resolution from the California State Legislature. The California state resolution honored the governor for his continuing commitment to increase international understanding.
Among topics of discussion at the Aswan meetings were the potential for Sonoma and Aswan to share vital information on water ecology and preservation, sanitation and health with the hope of collaborating as partners in a project which would have the capacity for sustainability. Details were reviewed of the first educational joint art, health, and education project between Sonoma and Aswan for children aged 10 to 12, called “Our Beautiful Water,” developed by Sonoma Aswan Committee Arts, Education, Tourism, Chair, Arlene Sukolsky, and Sonoma Historian/Sonoma-Aswan Educational Chair, George McKale. Sonoma-Aswan Environmental Chair, Ted Chenoweth, who helped to build the Aswan High Dam, will also be integrally involved in any joint water project, as well as Sonoma Sister Cities President, Bill Boerum.
To contact “Sacramento Seminar” visit sacramentoseminar.com.
The “Sonoma-Aswan Committee” welcomes new members with advance reservations at their next quarterly meeting, Monday, Dec. 7 at Jacuzzi Family Vineyards. Please call Evren Sarac Essner, 415.336.4523 for further information.