13 Feb 2020

The cities of Francistown and Genk in Belgium share similarities of abandoned mine shafts.

Briefing the media this week Francistown city clerk, Mr Lopang Pule, said other similarities included rehabilitating the abandoned shafts in the two cities, which were heavily dependent on mining prior to collapse of the mining sector.

The two cities first exchanged visits in 2004 and this led to signing of the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during the first work visit by Francistown to Genk. 

So far according to Mr Pule, three MoUs had been signed between the two cities.

He said September last year marked end of the third MoU that had been ongoing for a period of five years, noting that the primary focus of the MoU was ward development, secondary school education, youth development, waste management, health care, gender and other opportunities including entrepreneurship.

Mr Pule said from the on set of the twinning, ward development had been prioritised since the two cities had many of their wards around the city centre, adding that partnering on education had seen improvement in socio-cultural development. 

Special education department at Phathogo Primary School was born out of the twinning system of the two cities, he said. 

In addition, Mr Pule said Genk was sponsoring to the tune of 2 500 Euros any ward that came tops in income generating projects.

Mr Pule said in future, the cooperation would go beyond exchange of skills to include other topics such as food and skills training for teachers within the department of special education.

He said although there were no significant activities in secondary schools, plans were afoot to take the partnership at another notch. This, he said, would start with Setlalekgosi Junior Secondary School and Onze-Lieve Secondary School in Genk.

Mr Pule  said other potential areas of cooperation in the anticipated new MOU would be students exchange programmes in different topics such as food, climate change through the use of different internet platforms, curriculum exchange and the use of ICT in the teaching and learning. 

In the youth development category, Mr Pule mentioned that training in photography which would include exhibitions and others had also been planned for, noting further that as waste management had been an important area of cooperation since the beginning of the twinning, the domain seemed to bear fruits. 

He said various projects were set up such as production of a Waste Management Plan for the City Of Francistown, which included paper and water recycling. 

According to records the relationship between the two cities was started through the wisdom of one, Mr Frank Maes, an official of Genk City,  who was searching through the internet for places or cities of interest that the City of Genk could twin with. Francistown got the attention of MR Maes.  Ends