town twinning

The friendship between Konzer's Könen district and the French town of Charny was officially sealed in Charny in 1970 and in Könen in 1971.

OUR PARTNER COMMUNITY CHARNY

Until the end of 2015, Charny was an independent municipality with around 1600 inhabitants. Since January 1st, 2016, Charny has been part of the newly formed municipality of Charny Orée de Puisaye (14 towns with 5,200 inhabitants). Charny is located in the Yonne department, one of the eight departments of the Bourgogne (Burgundy) region south of Paris.

In addition to some departmental roads, the Ouanne River also runs through the town until it later flows into the Seine. The most famous attraction next to the castle is the "Louis Philippe Hall", the former town hall with market hall.

PARTNERSHIP ESTABLISHMENT

After the Second World War, regional politicians and prominent personalities from Rhineland-Palatinate and Burgundy worked to establish new contacts between Germans and French.

Against this background, the Rhineland-Palatinate/Burgundy Friendship Group was founded in 1956 (since 1999 Rhineland-Palatinate/Burgundy Partnership Association).

In the period that followed, many partnerships were founded at municipal level. The signing of the Franco-German friendship treaty (Élysée Treaty) on January 22, 1963 brought a further boost to the partnership movement.

Representatives of the municipalities of Könen and Charny made initial contacts to establish a partnership as early as 1968. After appropriate resolutions were passed by the councils of both municipalities, the partnership was officially sealed on September 6th, 1970 in Charny in a proclamation ceremony with the signing of the document by the mayors of Könen and Charny.

With the resolutions of the two councils and the signing of the partnership deed, the design of the partnership was placed in the hands of the citizens of both communities. At the beginning of the partnership, encounters mostly took place at club level, which then increasingly developed into friendly relationships between families from Könen and Charny, which continue to this day.

Encounters between athletes, musicians or young people, active participation in festivities in the partner community are just as much a part of the repertoire as private visits. In this way, younger generations and new citizens are also involved in the partnership. Everyone is welcome to participate or contribute.

PARTNERSHIP COMMITTEE

The activities in the area of partnership are coordinated on the Könen side by the partnership committee, a sub-committee of the Könen local council. It consists of five members of the local advisory board and one representative from each of the Könen clubs and organizations.

The contact person for our French friends in Charny is the local Comité de Jumelage.

In the annual joint meetings of the two committees, suggestions and deadlines for the design of the partnership are discussed or agreed.

The Könen Partnership Committee and the Comité de Jumelage Charny

• coordinate the activities and the exchange between interested associations,
• organize trips with interested citizens to the partner community,
• organize youth meetings,
• arrange partner families and internships

CONTACTS

If you are interested in the partnership, would like more information, get in touch with a family/individual from Charny or would like to take part in a trip to the partner community, you can contact:

Chairman: Peter Wincheringer, phone: 06501/12495, email: peter.wincheringer@gmx.de

Secretary: Paul Claes, phone: 06501/150071, email: paul.claes@arcor.de

Mayor: dr Detlef Müller-Greis, phone: 0170 244 0479, email: mueller-greis@gmx.de

The partnership between Konz and the French community of Brienon was sealed in 1965 in Konz and 1966 in Brienon.

The commune of Brienon is located in Burgundy and is the capital of the canton to which 10 communes belong.
It has 3500 inhabitants.

In 1972 and 1973, the town twinning between Konz and the Belgian town of Koksijde was officially sealed.

Koksijde is a municipality in the province of West Flanders on the Flemish coast.
The municipality has around 21,000 inhabitants

On November 16, 2003, the mayors Winfried Manns, Konz, and Adam Zazemblowski, Puck/Poland, signed an agreement on future partnerships between the cities of Konz and Puck in a ceremony in the conference room of the Puck town hall. The city of Puck is the fourth sister city of the city of Konz after the cities of Brienon in Burgundy/France, Charny in Burgundy/France and Koksijde in Belgium. The districts of Puck and Trier-Saarburg have been friends since 1999.

Puck County is the northernmost part of Poland with more than 150 km of coastline, mostly with the finest sandy beaches.

The town of Puck is the largest commune in the Puck district and is located near Gdańsk, directly on the sea. A tourist highlight is the Hela Peninsula, which is 36 km long and only 150 m wide in some areas, separating the Puck Bay from the Baltic Sea. In 1918 Puck was Poland's gateway to the Baltic Sea in the so-called "Corridor" and is now a charming small town in transition.
Just under an hour's drive away is the old trading city of Danzig with its rebuilt old town, further south is the old headquarters of the Teutonic Knights, the mighty Marienburg. Puck is located in Kashubia, the old settlement area of the Kashubians in Northern Pomerania.

In 1983, the Konz association of municipalities established a partnership with the Rwandan municipality of Kigombe. Kigombe was merged with the other municipalities in the Ruhengeri area as part of a municipal reform in Rwanda in spring 2001. From this point on, the partner of the Konz association was the city of Ruhengeri.

The administrative divisions of Rwanda were reformed again on January 1, 2006. Since then, the Muhoza and Rwaza sectors in the Musanze district in the northern province of Rwanda have been new partners of the Konz association of municipalities. The partnership is managed solely by the administration. There is neither a partnership committee nor a circle of friends. Since 1983, the municipality of Konz can look back on considerable success in partnership work.

The focus of the "development aid" provided so far has been the improvement of basic education:

• Construction and repair work at the Gahondogo, Nyamagumba, Bukane primary schools
• Equipping the primary schools of Kigombe with school furniture and teaching materials
• Construction of the IHOZO preschool. With this project we have broken new ground. The proximity to the National University in Nyakinama was the reason and guarantee for the success of this pilot project.
• Construction and equipment of 6 classrooms and installation of a toilet facility with 6 cubicles and a rainwater cistern at the Cyabagarura primary school in the Muhoza sector, Musanze district, North province, in co-financing with the state of Rhineland-Palatinate
• Follow-up project at the Cyabagarura primary school: Construction of 6 more classrooms, a toilet facility and a rainwater cistern with the financial participation of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Gymnasium Konz.

Pre-professional and vocational training (equipping a school workshop, funding a vocational school and building a car training workshop) were also part of our support program, as was improving the hygienic conditions of the central market in Ruhengeri and supporting the municipal administration with office machines and office supplies.

Because of the warlike events in north-west Rwanda, the connection to the partner community had been severed since 1997. It was not until the beginning of 1999 that we were able to continue our support and dedicate ourselves directly to the promotion of craftsmen. A carpenter's cooperative, which previously had to work outdoors and was only temporarily protected against the very frequent rainfall, was given its own handicraft hall.

In 2013, facilities for the disabled were funded for the first time:

• Support for the disabled people's cooperative KOMEZUBUTWARI - promotion of the pig breeding project including a training unit on pig husbandry and bookkeeping
• Support for the Fair Children/Youth Foundation for the benefit of deaf and dumb children in the neighboring sector of the partner sector of the Konz community, Nyange, Musanze district - Funding of the goat project by the Saarburg Rotary Club, mediated by the Konz community administration, as there was no project worthy of funding in our partner sector at the time was present.

We would also like to point out that all the projects that have been implemented were submitted to us as inquiries and requests from the grassroots (the municipality via the partnership office and the Ministry of the Interior, for Sport and Infrastructure).

school partnerships

In addition to the partnership of the Konz municipality, there are also connections between the following schools:

• Realschule plus with Ecole Primaire de Karwasa
• Gymnasium Konz - initially with CERAI Ruhengeri and from 1997 Ecole Secondaire Saint Vincent Muhoza