Since 1990, Portland has enjoyed an ever-closer relationship with Zimbabwe’s third largest city through the Portland-Mutare Sister City Association. Efforts in the past seven years have focused on supporting grassroots HIV/AIDS relief. With a very high (90%) literacy rate, and an equally high (80%) unemployment rate in 2007, and inflation over 2,800%, citizens are justifiably anxious about their future. But it is also important for Americans to understand, and Zimbabweans want you to know, that this is one of the most peaceful, creative and family-centered nations in Africa. With a projected 25% rate of HIV infection among all adults, the people of this deeply economically impoverished nation are looking for answers in many quarters. One of those answers has been the people of Portland, Oregon.
The people of Mutare and Portland have focused on strengthening ways to prevent HIV infection, care for the sick, increase economic development efforts, especially among those living with AIDS, and ensure that students continue to have access to education. And it’s working.
In the past seven years, over $120,000 in donations has helped the community build a rural health clinic, kept 235 orphans in school, paid for home healthcare workers to reach to the homebound, and bring fresh water and electricity to the clinic. Partners in this effort include Mercy Corps, Medical Teams International, OHSU, the Zimbabwe Artist Project, pharmaceutical companies, and many others.
Since 2000, six delegations have visited Mutare, and two groups from Mutare have come to Portland. In December 2006, a large ocean shipping container was sent to our neighbors in Mutare from the people of Portland, containing an amazing variety of donated goods: including hospital beds, medical equipment, two pallets of new computers, 24 soccer balls, and school supplies. As the relationship between our cities has grown stronger, and as the leadership has in each city has become more knowledgeable, greater possibilities for long term projects have become apparent.