In depth

“This Must Be The Place” was a two-year Erasmus+ KA220 project (2023–2025) that brought together partners from Greece, Italy, and Spain to explore the intersections of adult education, gender rights, and inclusive storytelling. The project aimed to empower adult educators and civil society actors with new tools and methodologies to raise awareness about gender-based discrimination and exclusion, using podcast creation and digital storytelling as central tools. Drawing from local realities and the lived experiences of women and LGBTQIA+ individuals, the project produced innovative educational resources designed to counter online and offline gender-based violence and promote inclusive public narratives.

Over the course of the project, three Capacity Building Activities (CBAs) were implemented in Palermo and Athens. These included hands-on training weeks where adult educators explored intersectional storytelling, gender representation in media, and the ethical dimensions of producing stories that reflect marginalized perspectives. A key innovation of the project was its focus on collaborative podcast creation: participants developed and recorded multilingual podcast episodes based on real testimonies and thematic workshops. These episodes became both tools for public engagement and anchors for the project’s educational methodology.

The podcasts were created with the support of experienced media facilitators and sound engineers, with dubbing sessions taking place in multiple languages across participating countries. A dedicated Podcast Production Guide was developed as a replicable educational resource, outlining the methodology and workflow used in the project. In addition, the consortium produced a decalogue and an educational guide, both rooted in the values of inclusivity, active citizenship, and anti-discrimination education. These outputs were disseminated through public events, online platforms, and social media, with the project’s website and Spotify channel serving as central hubs for access.

The dissemination strategy included workshops and events with the local communities, and the involvement of organizations like Diotima and Urbana helped to deepen the discussions around online gender violence and intersectionality.  

Overall, This Must Be The Place succeeded in blending participatory adult education with creative media production. It demonstrated how digital storytelling and podcasting can be used not only as educational tools but also as powerful mediums for building community, fostering empathy, and challenging systemic inequalities. The project has laid a strong foundation for future work in this area, and the partners are actively exploring ways to scale the initiative through larger EU-funded campaigns and collaborations focused on youth and gender rights across the Mediterranean.