Rotselaar - International Friendship

International Friendship

Rotselaar maintains sister city relationships with Bad Gandersheim, a city in southern Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hannover and Kassel, since 1987. In 1990, a town twinning committee was created for the purpose of furthering the ties between Rotselaar and Bad Gandersheim through visits, exhibitions, language courses and other initiatives. An annual town twinning weekend is organised as well, alternately in Rotselaar and Bad Gandersheim.

There has been a cooperation project between Rotselaar and Sal, one of the islands in the archipelago of Cape Verde. The island is around 30 km long by 15 km wide, and has roughly the same number of inhabitants as Rotselaar. Sal has 4 habitational centres: Espargos with the main urban and administrative centre and the international airport of Cape Verde, Santa Maria, where tourism and hotels are situated, Pedra de Lume, once the site of salt collection (hence the name of the island, "sal" is Portuguese for "salt"), and Palmeira, a fishing village with a port.

The request for cooperation came from Sal itself. Basilio Ramos, then Mayor of Sal, sought to establish a link with a municipality in the vicinity of Leuven. As a former student of the K.U.Leuven he wanted to strengthen the ties with Belgium. This form of cooperation is different from the others. The cooperation with Sal is a form of development cooperation where the accent is on exchange and partnership in the administrative and the professional fields, and in particular on the exchange of experiences in the fields of environment and youth work.

In 1989, the municipal government adopted the Romanian village of Vrânceni, which is a part of Căiuţi in the eastern county of Bacău, as part of the project "AdoptieDorpen Roemenië" (Adoption Villages Romania). The local action committee organises various activities throughout the year, of which the yields go to the adoption village. Among others, a school building was constructed in Vrânceni with the help of Rotselaar.