Sister Cities International was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 as a way to promote peace and prosperity through citizen diplomacy. President Eisenhower reasoned:
“If we are going to take advantage of the assumption that all people want peace, then the problem is for people to get together and to leap governments – if necessary to evade governments – to work out not one method but thousands of methods by which people can gradually learn a little bit more of each other.”
Now, Sister Cities International has united tens of thousands of citizen diplomats and volunteers in 150 countries on six continents.