OUR HISTORY
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After the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001, one of the founding members of the organization decided to reach out to a moderate Muslim nation to see whether the actions of a small group of committed people could influence the long-term relationships between Islam and Christianity. Through various business and personal connections, both established at the time and new, that nation was the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.
Beginning in 2010, exchanges of unofficial delegations occurred between interested community leaders and citizens of Issyk-Kul Oblast (Province), Kyrgyzstan, and Chelan County, Washington. The geographic similarity of the two regions with their beautiful mountains, lakes, and their semi-arid climate, and with both regions being the centers of apple and other tree fruit production for their two countries, made for an ideal sister-region relationship. In 2015 a formal Memorandum of Understanding was entered into by the two regions to develop economic cooperation, civic links, and mutual understanding. Four years later, the Kyrgyz-Washington Sister Region Organization was formalized as a non-profit and is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. In 2022, we interviewed one of our founding members, Randy Smith. The story mentioned above, of Randy being galvanized into action after the traumatic events of September 11, 2001, to pursue the good in people and our common humanity, and in the course of that to help found the predecessor association of our organization, to us is one of inspiration. The filmed interview, generously produced by North40 Productions in Wenatchee, is available on YouTube. We invite you to watch it by clicking here. For more detail on the history of our organization and one of the founding members, click here for an article by June Darling in the April 2014 issue of The Good Life magazine (https://bloggingthegoodlife.com). Since it was founded, our organization has expanded its development of economic cooperation, civic links, and mutual understanding to include all of Kyrgyzstan and Washington State. |
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