TMBTP set itself the following objectives: General objective: Improve non-formal education for adults about inclusivity—both online and offline—in Southern Europe. Specific Objective 1: Develop the capacities of adult educators to raise awareness among adult citizens about gender equality and the inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community in online and offline public spaces. Specific Objective 2: Create learning opportunities and innovative resources for adult educators and adult learners on how to promote gender equality and the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals in online and offline public spaces. Through these objectives, TMBTP aimed to stimulate fruitful public debate within the partner organisations’ local, national and transnational non-formal adult education contexts, improving educators’ understanding of the unequal power dynamics related to gender identity in public spaces. The project also aimed to equip educators with tools for critical thinking, communication, collective analysis and socio-civic deconstruction work, so as to challenge such inequalities and hierarchies and contribute to the positive transformation of public spaces towards greater equality.
Maghweb, Cinergies, and Associació created and implemented the project This Must Be the Place (TMBTP) to address the following needs. Such needs were identified at a local, national and European level. The need to make online and offline public spaces safer, more inclusive, and more empowering for women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. This need is highlighted by the high levels of harassment experienced by these groups in such spaces with an average of 50% reporting experiences of gender-based harassment. The need to foster active citizenship among adult citizens in the field of inclusivity, in light of the feelings and attitudes of powerlessness expressed by various adults from different socio-economic, professional, and educational backgrounds regarding the negative experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals and women in public spaces. These experiences were often perceived as “entrenched,” “natural,” and “inevitable.” The need to increase and strengthen the involvement of cisgender men—as allies—in initiatives on gender equality and inclusivity within the European Union, given that men are generally disengaged from constructive involvement in these pressing social matters.