L’AQUILA – Walks and excursions, to discover the towers and castles of the middle Aterno valley, along the paths that lead to Mount Sirente through immaculate forests and plateaus, trekking with donkeys and outdoor sports, widespread hospitality in the town , in B&Bs, holiday homes and farmhouses, a community shop which also markets local products, with in addition an e-commerce platform, an experiential museum of self-discovery and personal growth soon to be inaugurated, welfare and healthcare services for citizens, starting with the elderly.
These are the first activities, foreseen in a rigorous business plan of the community cooperative “Cuore Delle Valli”, presented on Saturday afternoon in Goriano Valli, a hamlet of Tione degli Abruzzi, in the province of L’Aquila, on the occasion of the traditional lighting of the fire of San George, a rite linked to the season of peasant civilization and the devotion to the martyr of the third century AD, who defeated and tamed a dragon that threatened a village.
In the presence of over one hundred people, including administrators of nearby municipalities and many economic operators and representatives of local associations, the speeches took place Massimo Padonepresident of Cuore delle Valli, Maria Grazia Guidonedelegated councilor of Cuore delle Valli, Stefania Marianimayor of Tione degli Abruzzi, Massimiliano Monettinational president of the Community Cooperatives sector of Confcooperative Habitat e Borghi in Rete, which brings together and coordinates the over 30 community cooperatives operating in Abruzzo, Lorenzo Berardinettimayor of Sante Marie and president of Uncem Abruzzo, Iginio Chiucchiarellidirector of the Sirente-Velino Regional Natural Park, Annalisa Spalazzi, researcher at the Gran Sasso Science Institute. You sent a message of congratulations and encouragement to the regional councilor Roberto Santangelo.
“Our objective is economic and social at the same time – explained Massimo Pedone -. In this splendid town we are around eighty actual inhabitants and we already have around 70 members with many requests still in progress, in fact the entire town including residents and the many who have second homes here, believe in the cooperative, want to be involved, and therefore the the best news in the meantime is that we are a cohesive community. The strength of the corporate form of the community cooperative is that of giving effective responses to the new needs that gradually emerge in our countries, of giving shape to essential services of daily living, of creating the conditions to make money from one’s history, one’s culture and its territory, to contribute to the growth of its businesses. We are the builders of a dream, which is not only to avoid the slow disappearance of our country but above all to create the conditions for a stable and continuous improvement of social life through the valorization of our territory and the potential that it expresses” .
The public meeting was also an opportunity to present to the citizens the logo of the cooperative created by the students Manuel Aloisi and Andrea Valentini, from class III B of the “Fulvio Muzi” Art High School in L’Aquila, who fully grasped the essence of the project: the “beat” of the community, the beauty of the territory and the future that awaits us.
Mayor Stefania Mariani said: “a beautiful reality is coming to life, born from the bottom, from the love for our land, from the tenacity of those who resist and who believe in the future of these places. Public administrations will now have to do their part to allow Cuore delle Valli to achieve all its ambitious objectives.”
Monetti continued: “What is being done here has a strong push, there are people who get involved, doing something fundamentally revolutionary, creating community. In the defined territories of the internal and marginal areas there are deposits of value, represented by nature, culture, well-being, landscape, ancient and precious knowledge, which in the 70s counted for nothing, but are now worth a lot”
Lorenzo Berardinetti illustrated the potential of hiking, showing the results of the brigands’ path, born in 2017, and which recorded over 5 thousand presences last year. “this means real jobs, and pay slips for our community cooperative, with this flow of presences, as many as 80 beds have been generated and they are not even enough, each walker spends an average of 500 euros, with ancillary services for all economic activities. Heart of the valleys is moving in the same direction, in a beautiful area, there are all the conditions for great success”.
Igino Chiucchiarelli spoke for the Park: “I went to see ‘A world apart’, a film which is a reflection on ‘remainder’, or rather on the right and possibility of remaining in the place where one was born, in the small countries affected by the phenomenon of depopulation and emigration. The community cooperative is an excellent tool to obtain this right. First of all, reviving and nourishing the sense of community, because people don’t leave just because of lack of work. The Sirente Velino Regional Park will give all possible support to this experience.”
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