LIVING MEMORY
A community does not end when a family leaves
People who live far from Abruzzo often carry names, recipes, photographs, village stories, and open questions with them.
Sometimes it takes little to reopen a bond: a last name, a street, a product, a story, or someone who knows the same place as your family.
Here, memory, community, new generations, and territory can speak to each other again.
FIRST THREADS
Where a bond can begin again
Villages named in the family
A village, a district, a street, or a home remembered from afar can become the first point of return.
Shared memories
Photographs, recipes, documents, and family stories help others recognize a similar origin.
New generations
Children, grandchildren, and young descendants can reopen the dialogue with simple and new questions.
Relationships that continue
A journey, an encounter, or a collaboration can arise from a memory set in motion again.
THE FIRST BRIDGE
Schiavi di Abruzzo and Paraguay: the first bridge
The first story begins with a precise bond: Schiavi di Abruzzo and the Abruzzese community in Paraguay.
For people living far away, a village can stay alive in last names, photographs, family dishes, celebrations, and the stories of those who left.
Here that bond becomes a threshold: not only memory, but a continuing community that also speaks to generations born outside Abruzzo.
A VOICE FROM PARAGUAY
Anna Fantilli Cirulli: from Schiavi di Abruzzo to Asunción
In 2015, Rai Italia met Anna Fantilli Cirulli in Asunción, president of the Association of Abruzzese People in Paraguay and originally from Schiavi di Abruzzo.
The interview retraces her family’s journey to Paraguay and offers a firsthand account of the bond that has remained alive with her village of origin: an archival document that adds a concrete voice to the bridge between Schiavi and the Abruzzese community in Paraguay.
The content is hosted in Rai Italia’s external archive.
A BOND TO ENCOUNTER
Twinning begins when people recognize one another
The symbolic cultural twinning between Schiavi di Abruzzo and the Abruzzese community in Paraguay makes visible a bond already alive in families, memories, and the names of villages passed down from afar.
It can come to life in a greeting, a testimony, a recognized photograph, or a question asked by a young person. In this way, twinning becomes relationship: people who look for each other, communities that speak to each other, and territory that becomes close again.
NEW GENERATIONS
Roots become alive when someone asks a new question
For many young people born outside Abruzzo, family origin is a word heard at home, a recipe, a last name, a curiosity.
Perfect memory is not needed: a question, a photo, a short story, or a detail can be enough to bring a family story closer to today’s Abruzzo.
A question for the family
A village, a name, a recipe, or a word in dialect can start a story again.
A voice to share
A text, an audio, or a photo can help other young people recognize themselves in the same path.
A bridge with today’s Abruzzo
Roots can also speak of study, work, travel, know-how, and relationships with those who live the territory today.
Junior Ambassadors: questions that open bridges
A small path can begin from a question to grandparents, a family photograph, a recipe, a word in dialect, or a village to find on the map.
Recipes, music, traditions, know-how, and family stories can become light opportunities for young people, communities, and territory to meet, even at a distance.
USEFUL QUESTIONS
Six questions to start from
A community can begin again from a simple question: a village, a recipe, a photo, a word in dialect, or the curiosity to understand what Abruzzo can mean today.
Where does our story begin?
What is the village, district, home, last name, or story where the bond with Abruzzo begins? Even an incomplete answer can become the first step to finding a thread again.
What memory has remained in everyday gestures?
A recipe, a celebration, a song, a word in dialect, or a gesture learned in the family can tell a lot. They do not need to become lessons: they can remain living fragments, easy to share.
What would young people like to ask today’s Abruzzo?
New generations can ask what remains of roots, what can be visited, what can be learned, and what relationship can be born with today’s Abruzzo.
Study, work, business: what can we learn from each other?
Roots can also speak of the future: study, work, skills, business, creativity, and relationships between different countries. Which ideas could be useful for Abruzzo?
What do products, businesses, and know-how tell?
Roots also live in an olive oil, a wine, a ceramic, a workshop, or a family that continues to work in the territory. Which realities can become bridges between community, travel, and authentic products?
What can arise from a shared story?
A memory can open a journey. A journey can open an encounter. An encounter can become collaboration, story, return, or renewed attention toward a product, a community, or a territory.
ABRUZZESE PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD
The first bridge is Paraguay. The story can reach farther.
The first bridge begins with a concrete community, but it can also speak to those who keep a bond with Abruzzo in South America, North America, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere.
Every contribution adds a geography: a village of origin, an association, a family memory, a story of return, a skill born far away and still connected to the territory.
FROM MEMORY TO RELATIONSHIPS
When a community recognizes itself, something concrete can emerge
A living community can generate journeys, encounters, returns, collaborations, and renewed attention toward the territory.
For families
Rediscover names, places, and memories that help give shape to one’s own story.
For territories
Bring out communities, villages, and local know-how through living stories, not anonymous showcases.
For associations
Give digital continuity to memories, materials, encounters, and relationships built over time.
For new relationships
Open possibilities for travel, return, collaboration, and dialogue between Abruzzo and communities around the world.
Write to us
Share a story, a memory, or a bond with an Abruzzese community around the world.
You can send photographs, memories, village names, recipes, questions, testimonies, or suggestions of associations and communities connected to Abruzzo. Even one detail can help someone find a thread again.
Memories
Photographs, stories, and recipes.
Young people
Questions, voices, and contributions.
Community
Associations, networks, and territories.
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ABRUZZO CONNECTIONS
From Roots to Relationships
A digital space to connect Abruzzo, Abruzzese communities around the world, stories, territories, experiences, and local know-how.
QUICK LINKS
THE PROJECT
Abruzzo Connections was created as part of the “Radici che Uniscono” project, promoted by the Association of Abruzzese People in Paraguay and carried out with the support of CRAM – Regional Council of Abruzzese Communities Abroad / Abruzzo Region. CUP: C74H25000280009.
Photo credits: Marco Cirulli, Daniele Mauro, Angelo Ninni, Onayer Rosa Garrido, and Giampaolo Di Biase
© 2026 Associazione degli Abruzzesi in Paraguay — Abruzzo Connections.
All rights reserved, except for materials credited to their respective authors and rights holders.
All rights reserved, except for materials credited to their respective authors and rights holders.