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Maryland Hosting Coordinator Visits Sister State
November 23, 2009
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| Mendy Nitsch (second from right) meets Aug. 4 with municipal leaders from Kirovsk District, including Open World alumni Denis Mironov (center left), head of the village of Shumskoe, and Aleksey Koltsov (center right), head of the Kirov Administration. | LENINGRAD REGION, RUSSIA – Open World host Mendy Nitsch, director of international affairs for the Maryland secretary of state’s office, had meetings and site visits Aug. 3–4 with Open World alumni in Leningrad Region to advance the Maryland Sister States Program (MSSP) partnership with that region. Along with members of the Maryland-Leningrad Region Sister State Committee, chaired by Ardath Cade, Nitsch helped plan and conduct three recent Open World accountable governance exchanges that support an MSSP initiative, backed by Gov. Martin O’Malley, to assist Leningrad Region implement a federal law shifting more government responsibilities to localities. On Aug. 3, Nitsch met in Gatchina with two alumni—a city manager and a mayor from nearby towns—and a local education official to become more familiar with local issues and to discuss expanding the sister-state relationship to include educational and social-services partnerships. On Aug. 4, Nitsch visited Kirovsk as the guest of two other alumni—Kirovsk’s city manager and the mayor of a neighboring town. In Kirovsk, Nitsch toured a school and a rehabilitation center and did further planning for Maryland-Leningrad Region education and social partnerships. Nitsch had traveled to Russia as head of a Maryland delegation that attended a three-day international youth forum in St. Petersburg at the invitation of the governor of Leningrad Region.
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