OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – An Omaha nonprofit is busy working to add another family member to the city.

Black Men United wants to become “sister cities” with the west African country of Ghana.

Ghana is about 6,000 miles away from Omaha. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. There are more than 33 million people who live in the west African country.

In an exclusive interview, 6 News talked to Ghana’s Prince Kwame Kludjeson. In his more than 20 years with Sister Cities International has grown partnerships with American cities and Ghana from 15 to more than 30.

Prince Kwame is the founder and president of the Global African Sister Cities under the umbrella of Sister Cities International. But he never thought he would visit Omaha, Neb.

“Nothing ever crossed my mind of coming to Omaha until I met Willie; so I’m not going to shy away of what I told when he mentioned — Ahh Omaha? For what am I coming here for?” he laughed.

Prince Kwame changed his mind when he met Willie Hamilton, president of Black Men United.

“I’m so much in love with the city, and I think there’s a lot we can do,” he said.

Hamilton went to Ghana for the first time about five years ago. He enjoyed the adventure, but the trip became more of a spiritual awakening when he took a tour of one of the country’s slave castles that held enslaved people from across Africa.

“It was hard to go through the slave castles — to hear all the things that took place the atrocities,” he said. “But it helped me understand what our people went through and how we need to connect back to the continent and why it’s so important.”

Hamilton made more trips to Ghana and for more than two years has been working to unite the country with Omaha. Prince Kwame says the partnership would help everyone involved.

“When you talk about Ghana and Omaha, we started talking about business opportunities, tourism,” he said. “…Ghana provides a lot of opportunities from agriculture to import and exports.”

Prince Kwame says teaming up as sister cities would open the door for trade, and tourism between Omaha and his country.

“Every December, American groups come to Ghana to visit. There’s a lot of opportunity for business, I’m a businessman first and foremost as a business you’ve got to dream of what you want to do… In Ghana or sister cities, we don’t do color. We don’t look at black. We don’t look at white. We don’t look at yellow. We don’t look at red. Ghana welcomes everybody.”

Hamilton says while tourism and other economic issues are important, so is teaching black children that the first chapter in Black history has nothing to do with slavery.

“A lot of our kids are tied to negative things when it comes to black to be able to see the pyramids to be able to see all the things we did and accomplished in Africa it’s a transformational thing,” he said.

Hamilton says State Sen. Terrel McKinney plans to take a group of Nebraskans to Ghana in November to discuss agricultural issues.

Sister Cities International is a national initiative started by President Eisenhower shortly after World War II.

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